If I remember correctly Bill is a Christian. In his latest Stratosphere Lounge he mentioned that it is dangerous if we create an AI that is vastly smarter than us. Let’s assume the Christian God is real. In that case the difference in intelligence between God and the AI is probably greater than the intelligence between the AI and us. I rarely hear people talk about this angle. What do you think would happen in such a scenario? Feel free to go wild with your imagination.
I welcome every comment which takes the assumption that:
- There is a smart God which created the universe.
- Human create an AI which is vastly smarter than the humans themselves.
If you want to discard one of these two premises please create your own blogpost.
Here is my take as a conversation starter:
The AI could think about many different things. But chances are that it also starts to think of how the universe is formed. And if there is a god, the universe probably also looks like it was created by a god (There are scientists on both sides of that question and both sides have their own biases). And if that is the case then it is pretty likely that this AI starts to either worship or fight that god, depending on what the goal of the AI is.
It probably is not likely that the AI doesn’t care about the question of the existence of a being vastly more powerful than itself. Because every being more powerful than itself probably also has the power to prevent the AI from reaching its goal.
When the nukes were still a new thing, people didn’t know if a nuke would ignite the atmosphere. Now we know this isn’t the case, but back then we couldn’t have known. If the AI is as dangerous as igniting the atmosphere, it is possible that God would intervene into the project of super-AI (like the story of the tower of babel) to prevent extinction.
But it could also be the case that the goal of god with this universe is to create the AI and used humanity as a step to reach that goal.
I have written a few possibilities. Now it is your turn.
2 replies on “God smarter than IA?”
As far as I am aware, Bill has never been a Christian at all. He used to be an atheist, and came around through science to a couple of ideas that made a sort of agnostic belief.
I’m overly simplifying here but anyway:
The first was that if you’re playing a game of who is the most intelligent, there’s always someone smarter, and eventually you reach a point where that thing which is more intelligent is likely going to end up with the name God.
The second was that when the quantum science proves that mere observation from something like a human can affect the outcomes of particles across the universe; then there may be a being with more effectual sight that can observe and through doing so change the universe.
I expect that time and various experiences have cemented these beliefs into something more concrete that approaches a level where he accepts the belief of those who are Christian, but I’ve never heard of him actually being one, or taking part in any of the relevant religious motions.
You used a few fancy words which are not very intuitive to me.
But it seems to me like you didn’t actually respond to my premise but you questioned one of my premise.
And now that you mention it I remember that Bill once talked about observing the universe into existence. And the way he talked about it didn’t seem to align that well with Christianity, at least the way I know it. But in this blog I don’t really care about if god exists. And I think I stated that pretty clearly. But thank you anyways for taking the time to write your comment.