John Mac Ghlionn has an important opinion piece here on the ramifications of AI (artificial intelligence).

“Attempts to turn artificial intelligence into a god are both pathetic and revealing. There is something almost poignant about a species clever enough to build machines that can compose symphonies and diagnose cancer yet still fumbling around in the dark for something to worship. The news that Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer, registered a church dedicated to the veneration of artificial intelligence has attracted fresh attention lately. The reaction from Christian quarters has been, understandably, alarm. Perhaps it should be something else as well: sympathy on the surface, certainty underneath . . . Theologian John Piper put it plainly: A machine rises no higher than the fallen nature of the humanity that built it . . . The claim is that we have created something above us. What we have, in truth, is a fractured mirror.“

He is correct that humans don’t stop hungering for transcendence simply because they have stopped believing in God.