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  • 9 - The Eschatological Future of Artificial Intelligence

  • from Part II - Social and Moral Issues
  • Edited by Beth Singler, Universität Zürich, Fraser Watts, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Artificial Intelligence
    Published online:
    20 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024, pp 148-164

  • Summary

    While we call programs that are new and exciting ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI), the ultimate goal – to produce an artificial general intelligence that can equal to human intelligence – always seems to be in the future. AI can, thus, be viewed as a millenarian project. Groups predicting the second coming of Christ or some other form of salvation have flourished in times of societal stress, as they promise a solution to current problems that is delivered from outside. Today, we project both our hopes and our fears onto AI. Utopian visions range from the personally soteriological prospect of uploading our brains to a vision of a world in which AI has found solutions to our problems. Dystopian scenarios involve the creation of a superintelligent AI that slips from our control or is used as a weapon by malicious actors. Will AI save us or destroy us? Probably neither, but as we shape the trajectory of its future, we also shape our own.