The Big Question 100: Will Artificial Intelligence Replace God?
Apr 29, 2022 816
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Will artificial intelligence replace God?
My son is studying to be a software engineer and he has an interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning. And recently we had a discussion about whether artificial intelligence would ever replace the need for God.
I’ve since found out that a little while back, a guy called Anthony Lewandowski in Silicon Valley founded an AI church. It was called Way of the Future. The core teaching of the church was that human minds would soon be uploaded to a computer and that this would be the path to humanity’s immortality.
This computer would include super-intelligent AI software every developed, with machine learning that would allow it to learn at a faster rate than any human brain.
There’s nothing much that’s new in this for Christians. We already know that superintelligence exists. That’s God. And we already know the way to immortality. It’s by accepting God’s gift of eternal life through what his Son did on the Cross.
Science doesn’t take God out of the equation. In fact, one of the most powerful evidences for the existence of Creator God that the universe is based on mathematics, and that it can be understood through scientific inquiry.
Now, just because you believe that artificial intelligence exists, that doesn’t rule out that God exists either. That would be, as Professor John Lennox says, like saying that you don’t believe that automobiles are real, that you don’t believe that Henry Ford was real.
You see, to worship artificial intelligence is a rather odd thing. It’s basically worshipping your own creation. In fact, humanity’s ability to develop artificial intelligence, and to do science, is powerful evidence for the existence of God, because it tells us that there is conscious intelligence in the universe.
You see, that’s another thing: consciousness. Self-awareness is part of it. So is free will, to a certain extent. But science can’t even define what consciousness is, let alone create a conscious entity. No matter how many algorithms a computer can run in a second, or how much it can learn, it still isn’t conscious. It will follow rules. No matter how complex they might be, they will always be rules, written by the programmers.
I have no doubt that computers will get smarter and smarter, and that artificial intelligence will get more and more intelligent. But you get the clue in the very name “artificial intelligence.” It’s artificial, which means someone made it.
The question is, “Can anything made ever ultimately be better than it’s maker?” I really don’t think so. It’s quite illogical to me.
I think that artificial intelligence may be able to simulate some human capabilities, and probably impressively so. But replacing God, the one who made the maker of the artificial intelligence? I think not.
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