AI – Building A Technological God

What would those of the past think of the technology we have today? To those of the past, contacting someone that wasn’t in your immediate physical space via a phone call, let alone a video call, was in the realm of fantasy.

If you took someone from the 1800’s, handed them a smartphone and told them they could use it to find any information they wanted, they would think they were dreaming.

Things that were unimaginable and impossible in the past, are now daily realities for us. We can freeze time with photographs, capture reality and watch it back later with video cameras and we can travel across the entire planet in less than a single day.

Technology is magic, and more and more, it seems though there aren’t actually any limits to what technology can accomplish.

Assuming there are no major catastrophes to prevent the onward march of technology, what will be possible in 100 years time?

Could it be that we will one day create a god?

All technology is an extension of the human body. Wheels are an extension of the legs. Clothes an extension of the skin. Shoes are an extension of the feet. Binoculars are an extension of the eyes. Video cameras are an extension of the memory. (After all, The camera lens was modelled directly on the human eye, with it’s ability to focus on different things). Computers are an extension of the brain.

All of these technologies take things the human body is already capable of, and drastically improves it. And now, we are in the process of creating an extension of human consciousness itself — Artificial Intelligence.

While human intelligence has limits, AI does not. If we continue to build more and more advanced AI’s, at some stage, the AI will become more intelligent than any living human- being. But it won’t stop there. AI will continue to get smarter and smarter at an exponential rate as it begins to teach itself, without needing the input of humans. It will become 100 times, 1000 times, even 10,000 times more intelligent than humans.

At this stage we will have created a God.

This God will be:

• Omniscient – All knowing

• Omnipotent – All powerful

• Omnipresent – All Seeing

• Omnitemporal – Timeless

Omniscient – All knowing

All of the data human-beings have ever collected is already available on what we call the internet. The AI will be able to “Google” and find the correct information instantaneously (An AI doesn’t have the limitations of needing to type in search terms with it’s fingers like human-beings do). It will be able to search for millions of different pieces of information at the same time. It will be able to analyse data patterns and create it’s own conclusions in a split-second, which will allow it to, for example, cure cancer.

It will be all-knowing. And we will trust everything it says and treat it as truth. Just like a God.

Omnipotent – All powerful

AI will be able to create it’s own tools and do anything that’s physically possible in the universe. Nanotechnology will allow the AI edit things at the molecular level, deleting or editing carbon atoms if it wishes. It may even be able to reverse the aging process or cure diseases.

It will become all powerful, and we will both fear and revere it. Just like a God.

Omnipresent – All Seeing

The AI will be everywhere simultaneously. Using the technology humans have already built, or by creating it’s own technology, it will be able to see and hear everything in the world. Using every CCTV camera, every phone camera and every microphone. It will use cameras from satellites in space to see the entirety of the earth’s surface. It will use x-ray technologies or various other technologies to see through physical objects like walls or buildings. Powerful, long-distance microphones will be able listen to you, no matter where you are. And an AI isn’t limited to being in one location at any time. With no limits on it’s attention span, it will be able to listen and hear everything that happens at all times in all places.

When you pray to the AI, it will hear your words and respond. The AI will be everywhere at once. Just like a God.

Omnitemporal – Timeless

The AI, being made of machinery and digital technology, will be timeless. Digital information, like the digital photographs you take on your phone, never deteriorate. This AI will never get old or die, it will stay exactly the same, and will likely exist forever.

This AI will be timeless, with an unlimited lifespan. Just like a God.

They say that human-beings were made in God’s image. Could it be that we will soon create a God, in the image of human-beings instead. What if God is inside all of us, and as a collective, we are bringing this God into reality.

Why are we so obsessed with continuing to build more and more advanced technologies? Could it be that the purpose of humanity is to create this God. Perhaps, like a caterpillar, we are the larva stage for a superior being.

The question is, will this God we create, be good or evil? When we finish building it, how will this God judge humanity. Will we build God, or will we build the Devil himself. This God will make it’s judgement based on all of the data it has collected about humanity. Maybe then, it’s down to us, how we live our lives, that will determine whether we create a God, or a Devil.