Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality
July 8, 2010
- Author:
- Robert Geraci
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press (3/5/2010)
Amazon | Apocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting everything from the world view of online gamers to government research funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci offers the first serious account of this “cyber-theology” and the people who promote it.
Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview shapes our culture. For instance, Apocalyptic AI has influenced funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, helping to prioritize robotics and AI research. It has become the ideology of choice for online gamers, such as those involved in Second Life; it has had a profound impact on the study of the mind; and it has inspired scientists and theologians alike to wonder about the super robots of the future. Should we think of robots as persons? What kind of morality would intelligent robots espouse?
Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this superb volume, Robert Geraci shines a light on this belief system, revealing what it is and how it is changing society.
Comments (1)
by segfaultvicta
There is a key difference between the apocalyptic tradition of Judeochristian religion and the concept Mr. Geraci is expounding here, which can be summed up as, “the idea of Heaven is backed up by fables and mythology, the transhumanist state is backed up by a few reasonable assumptions.” Heaven supposedly exists, put in place by a god; we -build- whatever transhuman existence may or may not wind up existing with our bare hands. Heaven is an end-goal, a single point of convergence; the transhuman future is one of an expanded role for sentience in the cosmos and a nearly-infinite widening of the possibility space for human action and thought.
I’ve not read the book yet; in fairness to Mr. Geraci, this review may not do his book justice. However, I think it’s willfully misrepresentative to describe transhumanism as a ‘belief system’ with a clear isomorphism to Judeochristian belief implied. Worldview, perhaps. Weltanschauung, perhaps. To imply that someone who shares this worldview does so out of blind Faith – to imply that transhumanists believe in a dualistic universe and a seperation of body and soul – is to do a great disservice to transhumanist philosophy and ethics. The realisation that consciousness is an algorithmic process currently implemented on large, wet chunks of bone-enclosed meat is isomorphic to the realisation that we do -not- live in a dualistic universe, in the same sense as a person with Judeochristian beliefs might argue.
There is a deep and important difference between theology and science, and while there is -much- undeniable speculation and banking on hope within the transhumanist community, the core ideas are those from materials science research, cognitive science, computer science, etc., and to misrepresent these as religious dogma seems questionable in the extreme.