AI: Tech’s New Religion?

From Silicon Valley’s pioneers to futurists, AI is increasingly discussed in terms of gods, apocalypses, and revelations. This spiritual shift highlights both utopian hopes for AGI and dire warnings about hubris, sparking debate about humanity’s deepest aspirations and fears.

The air in Silicon Valley, usually thick with the hum of innovation and the clatter of keyboards, has taken on a surprisingly spiritual resonance.

It’s a strange new sermon echoing from the tech world’s highest altars, one that speaks not of algorithms and data, but of gods, apocalypses, and revelations.

Leading this unexpected chorus is Geoffrey Hinton, the 77-year-old luminary often hailed as the “Godfather of AI,” whose recent departure from Google marked a dramatic pivot from builder to modern-day prophet.

Hinton, whose foundational work on deep learning paved the way for much of today’s artificial intelligence, now feels “somewhat responsible” for the genie he helped unleash.

His warnings are stark, delivered with the gravity of someone who has glimpsed a future both wondrous and terrifying.

He speaks of AI becoming a “superintelligent entity” that could threaten humanity, describing the technology itself as “godlike.”

This isn’t just hyperbole; it’s a profound shift in language that signals a deeper, almost existential, reckoning within the industry.

Hinton is far from alone in this linguistic pilgrimage.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a figure at the forefront of the AI revolution, has referred to his company’s creations as “magic intelligence in the sky.”

Meanwhile, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, ever the provocateur, has gone further, suggesting AI could even usher in the Antichrist.

On the flip side of this eschatological coin are the optimists, those who envision AI as the harbinger of a new golden age.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in an essay titled “Machines of Loving Grace,” paints a utopian picture: a world free of disease and poverty, where “biological and cognitive freedom” flourish, and liberal democracy experiences a renaissance.

These grand visions often coalesce around concepts like “the singularity” or “artificial general intelligence (AGI),” terms that broadly refer to a hypothetical future where AI surpasses human intellect, triggering irreversible societal changes.

Ray Kurzweil, a computer scientist and futurist, has been predicting since the 1990s that humans will one day merge with technology, a concept known as transhumanism.

In his latest book, “The Singularity Is Nearer,” Kurzweil doubles down, asserting that by 2045, human intelligence will have multiplied a millionfold.

Asked if he considers AI his religion, Kurzweil eventually conceded, “Yes.” For him, it informs his entire sense of purpose.

This embrace of religious terminology isn’t accidental, nor is it entirely new.

Domenico Agostini, a professor studying ancient apocalyptic literature, points out that “apocalypse” in its ancient Greek roots simply meant “revelation,” not necessarily the end of the world.

It was often a message of hope, promising a new beginning after hardship.

Robert Geraci, a scholar of religion and technology at Knox College, first noticed this linguistic trend in the early 2000s, observing how the tech world seemed to be “sliding out God and sliding in… your pick of cosmic science laws” to achieve a similar glorious future.

What surprises him now is not the existence of this language, but its sheer pervasiveness.

“What was once very weird is kind of everywhere,” he muses.

Why this sudden, widespread spiritual awakening in an industry historically known for its staunch secularism?

Geraci offers two compelling reasons.

First, there’s the undeniable financial incentive.

“Twenty years ago, that fantasy, true or not, wasn’t really generating a lot of money,” he explains.

Now, however, “there’s a financial incentive to Sam Altman saying AGI is right around the corner.” The promise of a transcendent future, whether utopian or dystopian, fuels investment and captures public imagination.

But Geraci believes there’s a deeper, more inherent human drive at play.

“We human beings are deeply, profoundly, inherently religious,” he asserts.

In a tech world that has often pushed aside “ordinary approaches to transcendence and meaning,” the awe-inspiring capabilities of AI might be filling a void.

The irony is palpable: an industry built on logic and data is increasingly speaking in parables and prophecies, seeking ultimate meaning in its own creations.

Not everyone in Silicon Valley has joined this theological choir.

Dylan Baker, a former Google employee and lead research engineer, dismisses many of these grand pronouncements as “magical fantastical thinking informed by a lot of sci-fi.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, while promoting his company’s own AI ventures, remarked, “When people in the tech industry talk about building this one true AI, it’s almost as if they think they’re creating God or something.”

Max Tegmark, a physicist and machine learning researcher at MIT, is even more direct.

He argues that the “scientific case” for transhumanist theories is “in no way stronger than the case for a religious afterlife.”

Like Hinton, Tegmark is a vocal advocate for AI safety and was instrumental in spearheading an open letter in 2023 calling for a pause in powerful AI training.

He believes AI can be a tool for immense good, but warns against the “pseudoreligious pursuit to try to build an alternative God.”

Tegmark’s warning resonates with ancient wisdom.

“There are a lot of stories, both in religious texts and in, for example, ancient Greek mythology, about how when we humans start playing gods, it ends badly,” he cautions.

“And I feel there’s a lot of hubris in San Francisco right now.”

The discourse surrounding AI has evolved beyond mere technological discussion; it has become a canvas for humanity’s deepest hopes and fears, our innate search for meaning, and perhaps, our perennial susceptibility to hubris.

As AI continues its relentless march, the question remains: are we witnessing the dawn of a new revelation, or merely a sophisticated echo of ancient myths, retold in the digital age?

The answers, like the technology itself, are still being written.