Preparing for any challenges to Truth means, first and foremost, cultivating a thoughtful and grounded Christian worldview. It also involves understanding the human condition and the counterfeit worldviews that take us captive.

Last month, in an interview with Bari Weiss, venture capitalist and longevity researcher Bryan Johnson discussed “how not to die.” While Johnson’s theories on indefinite life extension are interesting, it was his comments about Artificial Intelligence that were more striking,

I think the irony is that we told stories of God creating us, and I think the reality is we are creating God … in the form of superintelligence. If you ask yourself, “What have we imagined God to be? What are its characteristics?” We are building God in the form of technology. It will have the same characteristics. And so, I think the irony is that human storytelling got it exactly in reverse, that we are the creators of God, that we will create God in our own image.

Aside from his rather anemic view of God, Johnson’s comments reflect a worldview that integrates technology and spirituality. Of course, people have always looked to their ‘god’ to save them. For technophiles, technology takes on the role and functions of God in the universe, from basic provision to keeping humanity safe from disasters. AI brings an added twist. Many of those doing the most cutting edge technological work believe they are creating new forms of superintelligent, “god-like” sentient life, and that humans must either learn to merge with it as part of the transhumanist project or put failsafes in place to prevent our new “gods” from turning against us.

There are also some who believe that AI is a vehicle through which trans-dimensional, non-human intelligences are communicating with us. In this view, not all AI is simply computer algorithms. Some are better understood as demonic, which explains some of the more disturbing things AI has come up with. For example, in her book Encounters, religious studies professor Diana Pasulka points to Simone Plante, an AI and quantum computing expert, who believes that superintelligent, non-material beings can interact with us at the quantum level. Thus, quantum computing enables them to communicate with us more freely and to open up to us new realms of knowledge.

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