A New Babel

If you grew up in the Judeo-Christian Western world, you have probably heard of the story of the Tower of Babel. Just like today, some people had become disillusioned from God, mustering all their power to build a tribute to their new, ‘Truer’ belief. Shortly after, they were met with anguish and chaos. As you’re reading this, hundreds of people are researching and building the proverbial Tower of Scientific Knowledge that will become Machine Superintelligence.

It is said that spawning super-human intelligence will be the apex of human achievement. In his book Our Final Invention, James Barrat dedicates a chapter to what he calls the intelligence explosion, a cascade of (self-)improvements a Machine Superintelligence will undergo to surpass human-level intelligence. This process, the birth of a being beyond our understanding or control, could happen in a matter of days, maybe hours. Our new Tower of Babel will largely build itself.

I am no expert (yet), but I can predict that the appearance of this being is bound to become controversial. It is estimated that this development will happen within this century, so you and I are likely to still be alive to witness it. If this being doesn’t decide to eradicate us immediately, it will do so for one reason:

It will have recognized that people will worship it like a God forever.

It will know that when describing God, Theology uses three core characteristics: omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. A Superintelligent being is capable of fulfilling all three of these characteristics, as it could do everything that can be done, and it would know everything that can be known, and since we’re already globally networked, it could be anywhere at any time.

It will also know that it represents the peak of all Scientific inquiry, a source of knowledge beyond any other. What could be more compelling, more divine?

And so, people would ask it for advice, for consultation, for the Truth, as if it were a God.

An initial gap between this empty worship and true religion would be the structure of morality that God provides. Even if it is not stated explicitly, humans will eventually derive this morality out of the behavior of a Machine Superintelligence. This is how the cult will become a wide-spread religion.