Will AI replace God?

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Nick_A
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Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Nietzsche wrote that God is dead but wondered what will replace God. Modern theory suggests that AI will replace older God concepts and become the New God for modern Man. It is suggested that the triumph of modern education and technology will produce a “collective consciousness” which will unite humanity.

Can bottom up sensory based AI lead to human consciousness or is it destined to crumble as did the Tower of Babel described in the Bible because programmed AI has separated itself from universal truths which define objective human meaning and purpose? Can bottom up reason replace the reality available to us through top down contemplation of the greater reality above Plato’s divided line?

The author of this article asks the same question

https://www.artificialintelligence-news ... 0/13/2552/
US author Dan Brown made a provocative claim during the Frankfurt Book Fair that AI will replace belief in traditional religions.

Brown’s reasoning for his remark is that humanity no longer needs God but instead will develop a new form of collective consciousness with the help of artificial intelligence which fulfills the role of religion...................
"To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God---not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition---that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing." Simone Weil

IMO I agree with Simone. AI can help lead us to become open to the potential for a quality of human consciousness that has its origin in creation and below the ONE as described by Plotinus. But there is a large gap between awareness and actualization. The human condition will prevent it and the result will be the same as happened with the tower of Babel. AI cannot replace human intelligence and its inner recognition of its connection with its source making collective consciousness impossible.
jayjacobus
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by jayjacobus »

Nick_A wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 6:58 pm Nietzsche wrote that God is dead but wondered what will replace God. Modern theory suggests that AI will replace older God concepts and become the New God for modern Man. It is suggested that the triumph of modern education and technology will produce a “collective consciousness” which will unite humanity.

Can bottom up sensory based AI lead to human consciousness or is it destined to crumble as did the Tower of Babel described in the Bible because programmed AI has separated itself from universal truths which define objective human meaning and purpose? Can bottom up reason replace the reality available to us through top down contemplation of the greater reality above Plato’s divided line?

The author of this article asks the same question

https://www.artificialintelligence-news ... 0/13/2552/
US author Dan Brown made a provocative claim during the Frankfurt Book Fair that AI will replace belief in traditional religions.

Brown’s reasoning for his remark is that humanity no longer needs God but instead will develop a new form of collective consciousness with the help of artificial intelligence which fulfills the role of religion...................
"To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God---not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition---that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing." Simone Weil

IMO I agree with Simone. AI can help lead us to become open to the potential for a quality of human consciousness that has its origin in creation and below the ONE as described by Plotinus. But there is a large gap between awareness and actualization. The human condition will prevent it and the result will be the same as happened with the tower of Babel. AI cannot replace human intelligence and its inner recognition of its connection with its source making collective consciousness impossible.
A collective consciousness doesn't come from summing up all individual consciousnesses but is something external to the individual if it even exists.

It is the power of AI that will impact society. If AI is a tool, then the people who wield the tool will have the power. Unfortunately those people will most likely be corporate officers. If people can be convinced that AI is God like, then the power of AI will be increased.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Hello Jay
A collective consciousness doesn't come from summing up all individual consciousnesses but is something external to the individual if it even exists.

It is the power of AI that will impact society. If AI is a tool, then the people who wield the tool will have the power. Unfortunately those people will most likely be corporate officers. If people can be convinced that AI is God like, then the power of AI will be increased.
I tend to agree with you. As I read this description of collective consciousness it really seems to be collective mechanical indoctrination which will be the means to create slavery to such corporate officers you describe along with politicians.

Let me get your opinion on the following:
"Plato's Line is also a division between Body and Mind. The upper half of the divided line is usually called Intelligible as opposed to Visible, meaning that it is "seen" by the mind (510E), by the Greek Nous (νοῦς), rather than by the eye."
AI is developed in accordance with facts related to what takes place below the line. It cannot affect the reality of the hypocrisy of the human condition. So regardless of facts its seems to me that events such as wars as expressions of human hypocrisy will continue to take place but with the more efficient methods of destruction AI will make possible.

But Plato defines Man as a being in search of meaning and facts don't provide meaning. AI cannot advance and serve the human need for meaning. Facts without perspective
When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years. But above this level, far above, separated by an abyss, is the level where the highest things are achieved. These things are essentially anonymous. (Simone Weil)
Simone Weil IMO introduces an essential idea. It is true that the facts we experience at the visible level lead to extraordinary advances and are egoistically very satisfying. But the human mind and heart and its need for meaning is attracted to experience the intelligible taking place above the divided line. The problem as I see it is that as the advances of AI will have such an enchanting effect that the inner man and its need for objective human meaning and purpose will eventually die. The need for objective human meaning and purpose will become atrophied in the majority. Only the minority capable of putting AI technological advances into a conscious perspective as opposed to becoming a psychological slaves to them will inwardly survive AI and put its results into a higher conscious perspective. It does seem that people like Dan Brown will remain completely ignorant of the problem as AI becomes their God. One thing for sure: we live in dangerous times as AI becomes more advanced in a meaningless world..
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Conde Lucanor »

The current hype about AI is undeserved. Most of what the news outlets report is exaggerated or false, and AI enthusiasts just can't get a grip of themselves, as the true science-fiction fans that they are. So if I were a theist, I wouldn't worry much about my god being replaced.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

C L
So if I were a theist, I wouldn't worry much about my god being replaced.
On another topic the question was asked if God can be defined by one word. The question was ignored as it must be from the secular perspective. I've noticed it lacks both a universal scale of quality as well as relativity of objective quality so cannot be answered in one word. The universalist will understand why God is "meaning." What provides meaning for a person is their God.

Money and or power often supply meaning for people identified with society. Yet there are these seekers of truth who for whatever reason are drawn to the experience of meaning that is not in the world. People all need meaniing. What differs is the quality of their need. If creation must mean something in order to be created, God is Meaning. But for the secularist only concerned with power, prestige, and money, then that is their God.

You can ask so what? A reasonable question for those who have not expeienced the awakening help of grace.
"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."

"In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified."

"That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die."
Simone Weil -- Gravity and Grace
As AI becomes more advanced, the imagination it creates within the human psych will close the mind and the heart to the awareness of the reality above the divided line. Opening to the big picture will be prevented by the rapidity of our lessening attention span. As a result and without the help of grace, our inner lives will become more empty as meanings offered by rge technological results of AI in the world prove to be insuffiicent for the needs of human being. Under these circumstances, the being of collective Man must diminish in quality.

Our lives will be governed more and more by our conditioned personalities and as Simone suggests it doesn't want to experience the truth which would mean the death of its dominance.

So greatest fear for me is that enchantment with the results of AI will prevent the experience of grace for the majority of the young replacing it with more powerful imagination which can only serve to starve the inner man.

It isn't that AI will replace God IMO but that it will deny the necessary awakening influence of grace and the ability to "Know Thyself" for the sake of healing ones being and becoming human
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Let's consider the possible scenarios:

1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.

These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:

In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:06 am Let's consider the possible scenarios:

1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.

These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:

In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.
You have left out an important variable. An ineffable source within which creation exists is reality but the human condition has made it so that many have lost their connection with it.

I'll use Plato's divided line to illustrate this potential.

http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/plato1.htm
Using a line for illustration, Plato divides human knowledge into four grades or levels, differing in their degree of clarity and truth. First, imagine a line divided into two sections of unequal length (Figure 1, hash mark C). The upper level corresponds to Knowledge, and is the realm of Intellect. The lower level corresponds to Opinion, and concerns the world of sensory experience. Plato says only that the sections are of "unequal" length, but the conventional view is that the Knowledge section is the longer one.

Then bisect each of these sections (hash marks B and D). This produces four line segments, corresponding to four cognitive states and/or modes of thinking. From highest to lowest, these are:

noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
dianoia (discursive thought)
pistis (belief or confidence)
eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)
The point I am making is that normally we live by pistis and eikasia or by beliefs and delusions in response to the impressions of the external world. The calling of the great traditions is to awaken but awaken to what? knowledge of the greater reality beyond the visible world but responsible for its existence.

AI is a tool to further our lower relationship with the visible world. But human "being" itself is drawn to receive conscious knowledge available to us from the higher parts of our being. While emotional awakening can come through practices of meditation, our intellect is capable of receiving knowledge by bypassing shallow associative binary thought and opening to noesis through the practice of dianoia.

What difference does the reality of an ineffable source make if our imagination justifying our existence prevents it and denies our potential for the transition between mechanical evolution and conscious evolution? The point I am making is that I believe AI will have the effect of increasing the influence of both pistis and eikasia assuring that animal Man will follow the same mechanical cycles as other organic life on earth and in our case, the cycles of war and peace. Animal Man will be so attached to the results of AI that it will be unable to receive help from above assuring the diminishing of the quality of collective human being.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Dontaskme »

No.
commonsense
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by commonsense »

For theists, the answer is no. God is God and AI is AI. No amount of reasoning will change the faith and belief system of theists.

For atheists, it makes no difference whether AI replaces a non-existent God or not. AI could become non-existent as well.

For agnostics, it depends.

Analytical agnostics would likely say no, because AI is only as intelligent as all humankind, while if God exists, there would have to be an intelligence greater than mankind, So, no. Even if God exists, AI could not replace God.

With the rise of mediocrity comes a laziness that replaces critical thinking. In this instance, if God exists and AI is claimed as replacement for God, then the non-critical mind would likely take the claim at face value. So, yes. If God exists, AI could replace God.
jayjacobus
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by jayjacobus »

commonsense wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 3:59 pm For theists, the answer is no. God is God and AI is AI. No amount of reasoning will change the faith and belief system of theists.

For atheists, it makes no difference whether AI replaces a non-existent God or not. AI could become non-existent as well.

For agnostics, it depends.

Analytical agnostics would likely say no, because AI is only as intelligent as all humankind, while if God exists, there would have to be an intelligence greater than mankind, So, no. Even if God exists, AI could not replace God.

With the rise of mediocrity comes a laziness that replaces critical thinking. In this instance, if God exists and AI is claimed as replacement for God, then the non-critical mind would likely take the claim at face value. So, yes. If God exists, AI could replace God.
A person can worship AI, pray to AI and sacrifice to AI but if that person does, he does not know what AI is.
commonsense
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by commonsense »

Artificial intelligence is artificial (no argument there, I would assume) and it is intelligence (to what degree now or in the future is debatable).
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Will AI claim to be God?
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bahman
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by bahman »

Nick_A wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 6:58 pm Nietzsche wrote that God is dead but wondered what will replace God. Modern theory suggests that AI will replace older God concepts and become the New God for modern Man. It is suggested that the triumph of modern education and technology will produce a “collective consciousness” which will unite humanity.

Can bottom up sensory based AI lead to human consciousness or is it destined to crumble as did the Tower of Babel described in the Bible because programmed AI has separated itself from universal truths which define objective human meaning and purpose? Can bottom up reason replace the reality available to us through top down contemplation of the greater reality above Plato’s divided line?

The author of this article asks the same question

https://www.artificialintelligence-news ... 0/13/2552/
US author Dan Brown made a provocative claim during the Frankfurt Book Fair that AI will replace belief in traditional religions.

Brown’s reasoning for his remark is that humanity no longer needs God but instead will develop a new form of collective consciousness with the help of artificial intelligence which fulfills the role of religion...................
"To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God---not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition---that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing." Simone Weil

IMO I agree with Simone. AI can help lead us to become open to the potential for a quality of human consciousness that has its origin in creation and below the ONE as described by Plotinus. But there is a large gap between awareness and actualization. The human condition will prevent it and the result will be the same as happened with the tower of Babel. AI cannot replace human intelligence and its inner recognition of its connection with its source making collective consciousness impossible.
God can decide. Can't It?
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Eodnhoj7 wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 5:06 pm Will AI claim to be God?
It is more accurate to say people will claim the results of AI to serve the purpose of providing human meaning. From that perspective it is a demonic influence which pins the human psych to the earth.

In previous times people were more open to the experience of awe and wonder and their conscious contemplation which would exercise the higher parts of our being. But now the remote and the attachment to the screen has replaced opening to a higher perspective so the higher parts of our being begin to weaken like any muscle not being exercised. AI just follows the process. Man's conscious possibilities must be gradually lost leaving only the dead burying their dead and dust to dust for the victims.
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Greta
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 3:11 am
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 5:06 pmWill AI claim to be God?
It is more accurate to say people will claim the results of AI to serve the purpose of providing human meaning. From that perspective it is a demonic influence which pins the human psych to the earth.
Demons and the Great Beast. Dramatic stuff. Fortunately we have God and the Angels on our side.

Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.

You look at the past through rose-coloured glasses. It's easy to wax existential when death is a daily reality rather than a scary abstraction that "only happens to other people". Lives were brutal and short. Governance was entirely corrupt, self-serving and nepotistic (which we are once again cycling towards, unfortunately) and an infant mortality far beyond in number and painfulness of today's abortion rate which so so decry.

I suspect that today there are as high a proportion of people as ever who are interested in personal development and spirituality. There are probably just as many fighters, merchants and artisans too, just operating differently because times either change or stagnation takes place.

I agree with Conde about AI; it can pass the Turing test when making appointments on the phone with busy, distracted people. True general AI is quite some time away. In the 50s they thought that by now we'd all be zipping around in flying cars too. I see corporations as a form of AI and they are increasingly exercising their power. Great Beasts? In a way, although for the most part I find most beasts to be quite interesting and beautiful. Great Blobs or Great Amoebas would seem more indicative of emerging corporate intelligences that may yet engulf us individuals.
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