I read with great interest Tom Raabe’s American Spectator article, “The AI Threat to Religion.” My initial, rather unthoughtful response was to wonder how Artificial Intelligence could be more of a threat to faith in God than any other alternative. I define alternatives as any temptation that would lead one to forget the true God of Judeo-Christian belief. In our society today, we see this as the preeminence of self-interests, greed, and the like.

As a struggling, returning Catholic who used to believe he was an atheist, I have now made the study of my religion a part of my life. What I have come to learn is that faith in and knowledge of one’s religion really only comes through continuous study and prayer, something, regrettably, that I only began in my late 40s. In my experience, there can be no point at which you “get it,” so you are saved, and no more work is required. It takes effort to live up to the morals and even to know how they apply to a given situation, and this becomes clearer as you live your life and wise up a bit.

I’m sure many readers have heard the bible story of the Golden Calf, which tells how, when they were newly freed from Egyptian slavery and faced an unknown future, the Israelites began to forget the God who liberated them and to put other temptations and things above their faith. I call this corruption, and the Old Testament is chock full of stories about the faithful enjoying the benefits that God has bestowed upon them and then forgetting to be faithful to God in the way He has instructed. The result? It is the fall of that family or society from prosperity. Even the family of David, the earthly ancestors of Jesus, was full of people who could be both great and sinful. It is human nature.

Image: Worshipping the golden calf. Public domain.

Why this knowledge is important to understand how AI might threaten religion should be much clearer now. Although Raabe talks about time-crunched preachers using AI like Chatbot to create sermons, he adds that the real threat comes when the “singularity” occurs. The singularity is that moment that AI becomes so powerful and complex that it actually becomes aware of itself and starts making its own decisions regardless of human imperatives. This is the driving fear behind the Terminator franchise and other such stories. Could it happen? Maybe, but I am not qualified to predict that.

What I can predict is that, long before the AI singularity, and even if it never comes about, people will be worshipping AI as a pseudo-god, just as many worship “self” above all else now.

According to former Google engineer Anthony Lewandowski, AI would have the entire internet at its disposal, much like our own nervous system, and all the phones, tablets, PCs, and other connected devices would, in effect, be its sense organs. The AI will see and hear everything and be everywhere at all times. Lewandowski argues that the only rational word to describe that is “god”—and he believes that humans will basically have to worship and pray to AI to influence its decision-making. He has even founded a religion focused on this belief.

I don’t know whether we will one day worship an AI godhead, but I am quite sure that having more and more information and services at our fingertips will lead many away from faith in God. Thanks to AI, increased knowledge, ease of life, instant gratification, and reduced risk, pain, and suffering will do what it has apparently always done. We will focus less and less on the one true God and, as all the examples of the past demonstrate, we will suffer dearly for it. The AI singularity may not signal the end of the world as in The Terminator, but it could still bring great destruction to our society in ways that should already be apparent to us.