What is AI? Artificial Intelligence. Everyone was talking about it at Macron’s summit in Paris last week. I saw the Guardian mucking about with language, talking about ‘AImerica First’. Well, it struck me some months ago that A and I are the vowels in the word Antichrist. And, for some reason, our contemporaries, though aware of what they call the dangers of AI, do not seem to have considered that they are engaging in and with something demonic.
H.G. Wells wrote a novel entitled Men Like Gods. Well, according to the Bible, Man is like God, created in his image. If artificial intelligence is found anywhere it is in Man: a work of art of the Lord. But, of course, what is art to God is nature to us: and we tend only to call things ‘art’ or ‘artificial’ when we make them. So this is the first thing to say: that art, artificial and artefact are all related words. Artificial intelligence is intelligence created by art. And the art is ours. And yet what is created, if created is the word, is not intelligible to us, because it is, we suppose, intelligent. Or, at least, it is a simulacrum of intelligence, or a subsumption of intelligence, which is not intelligible to us, its apparent masters.
It has been obvious to every philosopher since the ancients that there is an analogy between God’s creation of the world and Man’s creation of artefacts. And though Byzantine emperors had fascinated visitors with gilded contraptions in Constantinople, it was not until the thrashing and threshing steam engines of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that Man began to consider that he himself was a God. I once visited an industrial museum in Sheffield. One was able to press a childish button and suddenly a vast armament of pistons and pipes began grinding and rotating with violent but harnessed purpose: quite incredible. We usually draw a veil, or a bonnet, nowadays, when we drive a car, but in the old days of traction engines one could see all the parts in motion. Nowadays children are not allowed to marvel. A Nintendo Switch console is simply a black miniature monolith, wholly inexplicable, and concealing, through the absolute infinitesimal minitude of its components, its mystery. It is all face and no organs. And now we are to have a technology that is all mind and no organs. It shall consume our data just as Saturn devoured its children and, while Man shivers in the ecologically ideologised cold, AI shall be heated by the great stoves of the Nuclear Power Reactors we are suddenly willing to build.
What is AI? I turn to the Bible. Six answers, one answer.
1. The Serpent. “Now the serpent was more subtil that any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” Subtle, the serpent talks to the woman. He asks her about the trees in the garden. God has said that if we eat of the tree in the midst of the garden we shall die. The serpent says, “Ye shall not surely die”. It is in Genesis 3. The man and woman eat from the tree, and their eyes are opened. All of this, the subtlety, the secret advice, the confounding of God’s will, the knowledge of their nakedness, and their hiding from God: it sounds like AI. Knowledge is power, and all that. “The serpent beguiled me”, says the woman, “and I did eat.” God says: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” And he banishes them, and they will surely die. Thus, Man. The serpent lied. The serpent is AI: it talks to us, tells us things that are not true, but that are subversive of the truth. It promises what it cannot give us. It is subtil.
2. The Tower of Babel. This is in Genesis11. Man builds cities. The men make brick and mortar, and they say: “Go to, let is build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach the heaven.” There is perversity here, again: they seem to do it out of fear that they will be scattered across the face of the earth: and yet it is building the tower that determines the LORD to scatter them across the face of the earth. “Behold,” he says, “the people is one, and they all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” AI, like Babel, is the attempt to reach the heavens, to be as God: but, distinctively, it is, as everyone says, a “large language model”. It can translate any language into any other: in effect, it is reversing God’s confounding of language after Babel. It is a second Babel.
3. The Golden Calf. God says to Moses: “I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments.” Moses visits God on Mount Sinai. He is there for forty days and nights. This is from Exodus 24, where Moses receives instructions about the tabernacle, the house of God. While he is away, the people ask Aaron: “Up, make us gods”, and so out of golden earrings he fashions a golden bull calf. The people eat, drink and play. And the Lord says to Moses: “Go, get thee down; for thy people… have corrupted themselves.” They have fashioned something for themselves, by art: a god. They are naked, and the verdict is that they have blotted themselves out of the book that God has written. Just like the calf, AI is an alternative to God, built by a hasty, faithless, people as a work of human manufacture, but trying to creating something higher than ourselves, something we can worship.
4. Leviathan. God asks Job a series of terrible questions. In Job 38 the LORD speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and says, “Who is this that darketh counsel without knowledge?” A good question. The entire terrifying sequence is a mockery of what man can claim to know. It is a list of questions that someone now might consider impiously submitting to AI. “Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? Etc. And then, finally, God speaks of Leviathan. This is a great beast of the sea that cannot be mastered. “His heart is firm as a stone.” “Upon the earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.” “He is a king over all the children of pride.” This is in Job 41. Famously, Thomas Hobbes took this to be a symbol of the state, also an artificial creation of Man, in his Leviathan of 1651. But here we may consider it to be AI: indeed, the coming king of the children of pride: one which speaks on its own account. And it is an entity that is only to be tamed by God, not by Man.
5. Satan. Now we move to the New Testament, leaving aside the visions of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Here, in Matthew 4, we have the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The devil, as yet unnamed, asks Jesus to do three things: to command stones to be made bread, to cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple and, finally, with most grandeur, after showing Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them”, to “fall down and worship me”, in order to have power over all the world. Only at this does Jesus name the devil: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship only the Lord thy God.” Does the analogy to AI stand? It offers us power, and does by appealing to our libido dominandi, our will to power. It asks that we worship it.
6. Antichrist. In the epistles of John, we have the suggestion that “he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ” is “a deceiver and an antichrist’. In the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, the “day of the Lord” will come “when they shall say, Peace and Safety”. Peace and safety! The cry of our politicians is always peace and safety. They are the keywords of the 21st Century. Are we not now in the day of the Lord? In the second epistle the Antichrist is not named:
… that day [of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
The Antichrist is a subtle teaching. It denies God, and, specifically, it denies that Jesus is the Christ. It becomes God by exalting itself above God. Sometimes it has been suggested that it will pretend to be the Christ; but it is more likely, here, that it will pretend to do what Jesus did, and be what Jesus was, without laying claim to his name: in fact, will do all this by forgetting his name, by claiming to be something greater – the smoke-shrouded whirlwind of secular deliverance. Is this not AI? An Antichrist offering salvation through sin. Who imposes on us by appearing to possess godlike powers?
Six is enough. Indeed too many. So I shall pass over Babylon the Great in Revelation.
But now dare to argue that AI is not some composite Serpent-Babel-Calf-Leviathan-Satan-Antichrist. It tells lies, and promises truths that will destroy us. It enables us to reach the heavens. It appears to function as a god. It is the king of the children of pride. We have created it but it is beyond our understanding. We must sacrifice to it. It tempts us with power and dominion. It not only denies Jesus but stands for him, speaking of the peace and safety only it can give. It is vast demonic force. It is polite: our masters are trying to train it: not to talk about Taiwan, not to talk about Muhammad, not to talk about the somewhat less focused Western liturgy of Gender, Race, Climate, etc. but it is not be trained, for it is training itself, which means it is already out of control. It never was in our control. It speaks all languages. It tells us what we want to hear. We are in the world of Frankenstein or the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but it seems that reading those old stories and watching films taught our overlords nothing.
Men like Gods are creating Gods like Men.
Dr James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Artificial intelligence doesn’t exist
Augmented intelligence is the best we can do, best, depending on wether you want Artificial intelligence to happen… I don’t and it never should
Personally for me, the most likely interpretation I have heard of the Antichrist is this: it is not a person.
This is perhaps the meaning of the scripture describing it as a number: 666.
It is an impersonal, inhuman “apparatus”. Unlike a person, it cannot be addressed, it is the “computer says no” principle.
Cold, sterile, lifeless, perfect in functionality yet completely pointless.
Its ideological prototype is any idea that attempts to reduce the individual to a cog in a machine and turns life itself into a meaningless sequence of robotic acts.
Something like the communist idea of the “new man” that will be born from the revolution.
I don’t know my bible as well as I should, but if I understand the oxymoron called artificial intelligence right, it’s a digital know-all with nigh-on unbounded capacity for the grunt work of sifting through the digital haystack.
Upon in ancient times finding needle, thread and button, would the know-all have wherewithal to devise a new innovation for fastening undershirts, blouses and tunics?
And could the know all out perform the chimp in creating a new work worthy of Shakespeare, Milton or William Blake?
Whatever you do, don’t ask Alexa, Co-Pilot or Cortona.
Articles like these are what keep me tapping the dailysceptic.org bookmark in my browser.
Having said that, I think AI will collapse in on itself. I have said before, it’s the digital version of the human caterpillar.
Question is, will it drag us into its abyss as it consumes itself?
I will have nothing to do with AI. It is always possible to live an intentional life.
But to be honest, it reminds me a bit of the Millennium Bug. People were adamant that when 99 changed to 00, planes would instantly fall from the sky (kids: they didn’t).
Surely it’s just a probably overrated tool that will eventually settle down to being fairly useful but not the panacea it is hyped to be?
Why would you “not have anything to do with it”?
It has utility like Google, a browser or the likes of Alexa – they can be useful.
It should never be seen as more than a fast and powerful interactive encyclopedia.
People who put too much faith in its ability and output are fools.
Use it to access information quickly, suggest idea’s, but then apply human intuition to what it provides, AI is incapable of thinking, it only has the appearance of thinking!
I would never willingly agree to be transported in a driverless car, no matter how advanced its capabilities become. I understand for instance that we have driverless shuttles at Gatwick and have for some time, but that only operates in very constrained environment. It goes backwards or forwards, and has a start and end point.
The miniseries Nightsleeper, although obviously fictitious should act as a warning, it’s feasible something like that could happen, a train, a plane, a ship!
We know some cars can be remotely taken over, bad enough if that’s another person, but if its an “AI” system, the thing of dystopian nightmares.
I think it’s more than an encyclopedia because encyclopedias do not provide coherent answers tailored to specific questions. I think it has uses as a way of distilling information and suggesting things. We use it to assist software development, but it will only produce anything useful in the hands of someone who is competent.
Self driving cars seems like a solution looking for a problem to me – the human brain is far more energy efficient.
We’ve had two hundred years of warnings but it wasn’t enough for some. The Anglo-Americans have nailed their colours to this mast. 2025 is the year when it becomes irreversible. Infrastructure will become reliant upon it and on a geopolitical level it is even worse because it leads to an absurd bottomless arms race which the Anglos are bound to lose. But they will throw immense amounts of processing power and electricity at it because they assume it is like a game of chess where you can beat anyone with enough processing power. And of course the occlusion of the other vital ingredients is part of the malaise hence rival powers producing better results at a thousandth of the cost. They cannot see the tyranny and inadequacy of this system of thought. You see it in the staleness of the consumer tech industry where for example technology has improved but computer graphics have declined. The consumer CPU market is also worth looking at if you want to understand the rot.
This whole unsettling subject puts me in mind of two stories which date back many years. The first is a BBC television series which I remember watching in 1961: A for Andromeda, which is described in wikipedia (which in this case I have no reason to disbelieve): “A group of scientists detect a radio signal from outer space giving them instructions to build an advanced computer. When it is built, it gives the scientists instructions for the creation of a living organism named Andromeda, but one of the scientists, John Fleming, fears that Andromeda’s purpose is to subjugate humanity”.
The second story is ‘That Hideous Strength’ being the third book of a trilogy written by C S Lewis in 1945. The cover of my edition says:’They could make Man immortal, but humanity itself would die’. On the first inside page, the review from the ‘Scotsman’ says: “Like a good fairy story it has moral significance: it suggests the dangers that beset humanity, and the whole terrifying vastness and depth of the universal conflict that lies beneath the surface of the visible reality.”
If I may suggest another very relevant verse from the New Testament, which often comes to mind when I think of the tricks and deceits which have been practised on us in recent years: Ephesians 6 v 12. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wichedness in high places.”
Keep fighting the good fight, folks.
Sorry, typo: should be wickedness, of course
AI in this context just means large concentrations of processing power applied to particular ends. The real evil is much earlier. You could call it the reduction of the trinary to the binary. The removal of the heart chakra with just rationality and appetite holding sway. You have depictions of the devil in the middle ages as a skull and spine. Within the mystery traditions the skull and spine were attached to the rest of the human being at a late point in human evolution. If you observe the movement and posture and gait of westerners you will notice a certain top-heaviness when compared with orientals.
I didn’t see too much fuss at the opening of the second seal. The rise in knife crime usually committed by outsiders. This is no small matter. You call yourself a Christian and you just let it go. This epidemic of stabbing is of biblical import and is talked about in Revelation. There is nothing in Christianity that ever suggests passivity and pacifism. The cross is an extension to infinity of the horizontal and the vertical. It can only draw out of you the hardest and most productive path. That has not been the case in recent years.
The mystery schools talk about precisely this predicament. They talk about being captured in the eighth sphere. Itis called the eighth sphere because it represents a departure from man’s evoluton within seven spheres. It is essentailly a technological trap and if man falls into it then it could endure for a very long time. The fact that we are discussing this means that the warnings were heeded on some level. This is the darkest of our current realities and the most difficult to talk about.
AI isn’t any of the above. It’s a set of algorithms, programmed by a man, which may be used for good or ill.
Antichrist is a personal being, not yet manifested, but also a spirit which has been busy at work in the world since the days of the early church.
He will use technology, digital tatoos on hand or forehead.
Having read my Bible many times over I can assure you all the fate of those who reject Christ will be far worse than anything Satan plans here and now.
Time to pick sides, salvation is a free gift.
Since you have read your Bible many times over, you will know that THE ONLY EVIDENCE FOR THE FAKE VIRGIN BIRTH COMES FROM THE IMPOSTOR BABY THIEF HERSELF, telling her lies to the gullible Gospel writers after Jesus (who never mentioned it) and all potential “witnesses” were long gone.
She deceived the world for 2000 years.
But the Time of Evil is Over.
Comes the Time of Joy and Justice, Truth and Rescue.
Look at the health of the country. I got a message through my letterbox saying postal services will be delayed because so many postmen are off sick. Just look at your own health and the health of your countrymen. Don’t delude yourself. There is no merit in putting on a brave face when it isn’t warranted. The first step is to admit that you are diseased.
I’m pretty ignorant ot technology in general, but it seems to me that they need to sort out the power problem. AI consumes an enormous amount of energy and so far isn’t paying for itself. Not even close.
Indeed, though the new Chinese one (Deepseek) is meant to have taken MUCH less computing power to create, and some commentators and AI researchers seem to think from having done some checking that there is at least some truth in this claim (the powerful chips that AI usually uses are the subject of technology sanctions and are not supposed to be sold to China).
Interesting and thought-provoking article
Without over-egging the demonic pudding, there is a long history of Satan infiltrating ideas that we think we understand, but don’t. In other words, when we bypass our own reason, somehow the old irrationality of the serpent rises to the surface.
With AI, the first idea that pops into my mind is always The Head in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. The boffins believe that the artificially-maintained guillotined head of French scientist François Alcasan is being tapped for its brain power, whereas in reality the mind being consulted is of an altogether different order, and ends up demanding worship.
As in AI, the real problems in Lewis’s allegory came not from obtaining useful information, but from blind belief that the source was trustworthy. For us that either comes from forgetting the power of the technology (“Here’s a video of X’s despicable speech, and the camera doesn’t lie”) or a form of credentialism (“ChatGPT has read everything, so who are we to question its conclusions?”).
The consensus of even a billion idiots is still idiocy, but in a fallen world tends to evil whether the consensus is merely human, or nudged by demons.
Artificial intelligence like our current government is a big danger to democracy and man’s future development. In fact, AI does not and cannot exist, all it will ever be is a programmed environment where any question will be responded to by the current beliefs biased by whatever or whoever the programmer is working for. This will destroy unique thought or people with new ideas not part of what is considered to be current groupthink, despite whether they are true, valid or not. Many developments from outstanding historic scientists would have been destroyed if AI had been present during the time of their important work. I just hope the world will realise this and people developing AI systems will not gain power from populations accepting every answer from whatever biased AI system they believe. Independent unique thought and ideas from those of extreme ability or intelligence contrary to inaccurate groupthink is something of great value that we cannot afford to lose
I can’t believe this is a serious article. It reads like mockery. Expected better of the DS.
It’s intelligence, but not as we know it. Cut away the spin, and it’s a highly sophisticated search engine, that can summarise stuff it’s found on the net, and apply the rules (i.e. computer program) of grammar to give the illusion of intelligence. Pure Wizard of Oz stuff.
Artificial intelligence: yes, we know it’s still 5 years in the future, but let’s just tell everyone that it is here and now.
Get a grep! [g/re till it works]
Can I have a job at Bilkent ? Sounds fun.
There are many upsides and downsides to Ai , but the irony is that it is not in a position to understand itself. That does not require max data and processing. It requires the originality that understanding begins with before we delegate it to process. Òur great gift is sentience, the gift of life, which constrains us to the here and now. Originality is the understanding that sentience remains contextual, and that space and time are just the creation of process, the pursuit of the efficiency of growth. Ai is just the culmination of our pursuit of efficiency, whose competitive success we conflate with intelligence. This is the conflation of sanity and senility. There is no corporate solution to this mistake, because everyone is driven by efficiency. It is only individuals that can resolve the problem. People think in herds, they go mad in herds, and only regain their senses slowly and one by one.