AI ‘scarily parallels Biblical prophecy’

Theologian, mathematician and bioethicist John Lennox says some predictions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over the world “scarily parallel Biblical prophecy”.

Writing in The Times, Lennox – whose thinking has been extensively covered in en – said: “If we are going to take seriously the view of leading scientists and engineers that AI poses an increasing threat to humanity, should we not also take seriously Biblical predictions that become more realistic by the day?”

Citing as an example physicist Max Tegmark’s book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, in which a totalitarian world government requires everyone to wear a “security bracelet”, Lennox then points to Revelation 13 and asks: “Could this be a diabolical AI system?”

He adds: “It would be naive to dismiss the prophecies of Revelation as merely fantastical symbols, for St Paul says essentially the same thing in plain language to the church at Thessalonica. He warns that in the end times a ‘man of lawlessness’ energised by demonic deception will arise and claim to be God. Paul prophesied to the Thessalonians that what will happen in the future is the inevitable harvest of the attempt to deify humans that was already visible in their Roman culture at the time.”

He concludes: “As I reflect on the frenetic attempts to save humanity by deifying AI and/or turning humans into gods, I cannot help noticing that the key Christian message is in the opposite direction – about a God who became human in order to effect a salvation that deals with the fundamental flaw in human nature that technology overlooks because it often embodies it – rebellion against God.”