Author Wynton Hall reveals in his new book Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI that the worship of artificial intelligence as a literal deity is not science fiction. It is already happening, complete with IRS-registered churches, robot priests, and AI confessionals.
CODE RED explains that a former Google AI engineer and self-driving car pioneer named Anthony Levandowski filed paperwork with the IRS in 2017 to register a new church called “Way of the Future.” Its stated doctrine was centered on “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software.” In an interview with Wired, Levandowski described AI in blunt terms: “What is going to be created will effectively be a god. If there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”