Book Review of Dan Brown's Origin - A.I. Wants to Kill Religion

***Spoiler alert: If you plan on reading the book, you may want to skip this post.***

Dan Brown is an admitted atheist and in his newest book, Origin, the first goal of artificial intelligence is to kill God and religion in the name of science.

As someone who has been warning about this scenario for many years now and also writing on a number of the things he discusses in his book (Dan, are you a reader of this blog?), it is nice to see that a very influential atheist and writer like Brown is helping to bridge the connection between malicious AI and long-held predictions regarding the Antichrist.

Mind you, Brown does not explicitly say that his AI, named Winston, is the Antichrist or that a future AI may turn out to be one either (its entirely possible that Brown hasn't yet made this connection himself, though that does seem hard to believe), BUT, without a doubt, the role AI plays in his story is certainly that of an antichrist. Let me explain.

The Bible says that the Antichrist is evil, hates God, and will either deceive or kill those that follow Him. It's also EXTREMELY powerful and can't be stopped by anything other than God Himself. Basically, in my reading of the Bible, Satan and AI work together hand-in-hand to achieve global domination and to rid the earth of God. In Origin, Winston is certainly capable of doing both and tries its best to pull off the latter.

It's very interesting because--and this is where I give away the plot--all throughout the book you are led to believe that the Catholic Church--more specifically, a very powerful Bishop--has engaged in a holy war to kill a staunch and brilliant atheist named Edmond Kirsch to prevent his "groundbreaking scientific discovery" from going public that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that life evolved entirely on its own (through so-called abiogenesis) and, ultimately, that God does not exist.

For those that are interested, Kirsch makes this discovery by creating a quantum computer, which also gives birth to Winston, that simulates Earth's initial conditions (the famous Miller-Urey experiment) and shows that, by running the clock forward in time, matter naturally self-organizes into life. The "God of the gaps" has been officially killed, Kirsh proclaims.

Now, there are a lot of twists and turns on how all this plays out (Kirsch is assassinated by a religious zealot before he presents his discovery to the world and the symbologist Robert Langdon must follow the clues to figure everything out) but, throughout the book, the basic message and plot line is to convince the reader of the following: religion is evil and will do anything necessary to preserve its power--whether that be through killing, lying, stealing, destroying people's lives, etc--all "in the name of God."

Since many people already believe this to be true, much of the book plays easily into this assumption. Ironically, the major plot twist in the end reveals just the opposite: the murders, lies, and deception are not being done by the Catholic Church, or religion, at all. It was Winston, the AI, all along.

So, although the atheistic message that religion is evil and willing to kill in the name of God was a constant and almost never-ending theme of Origin, in the end, Brown makes it clear that, in a world where faith and religion are struggling for survival, AI will likely deal the final death blow...all in the name of science.

Read next: Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God

Two Predictions on AI

There are two things that I'm nearly 100% positive that we'll see in the years ahead when it comes to AI. It doesn't take a prophet to predict either of these because I am simply looking at current technological trends and extrapolating them forward.

The first is AI-based cyberattacks and hacking. Right now, nearly every hack or breach is initiated by a human being, though this will not be the case in the not-too-distant future. Eventually, we will become quite accustomed to the idea that "bots"--as they are currently referred--will act all on their own to steal identities, penetrate networks, and conduct all sorts of malicious activity. 

Keep in mind, this is already happening now since cleverly programmed software has the ability to propagate like a virus from host to host without the need for a human hacker to facilitate its movement. This is common knowledge to all of us, which is why we collectively speak of such malicious programs as viruses, which, like their biological cousins, inhabit that gray area between living and nonliving entities.

We now wrestle with this same ambiguity when it comes to nonbiological viruses. Due to the growing complexity and ability to act without human direction, i.e. autonomy, malicious software utilizing the latest advancements in machine learning will also begin to appear more and more like a living organism with intelligence similar to or greater than a human being.

I suspect that we are much further along in this than most of us realize and it is only a matter of time before we see headlines of an AI-based cyberattack originating in a government research laboratory.

The second prediction I am making--and this is not really a stretch--is that most of us will be having conversations with AI on a regular basis. I already do this on a limited level with Siri on my iPhone when I ask her questions about random facts that I need to lookup or when I need her to send a text message or set a reminder, etc etc, but as the programming gets better and those at Google, Apple, and Amazon apply the latest advances in NLP (natural language processing) and machine learning, the conversational quality of AI will eventually become so natural that it will seem like we are just talking to another human being. As many of you probably know, this is referred to as the Turing test.

The first scenario of an AI-based cyberattack could happen any day. The second scenario is probably within a matter of years. I think Ray Kurzweil has predicted the Turing test to be passed by 2029 but we will see and be quite comfortable with conversational AI long before that.

Then, when AI starts forming its own opinions and thoughts on matters we ask it, that's when things get interesting.

A Question for Stephen Hawking

Dear Mr. Hawking,

You've made it very clear that you are worried about AI and said this week in Lisbon that the emergence of AI could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization."

I agree with you, but wonder if you would still be worried or see the need to regularly voice your concern on this issue if AI was more selective and calculating in its killing of certain segments of the human population?

You have admitted that we--speaking for scientists, philosophers, and humanity at large--just don't know exactly how things will play out, but that is only because you haven't applied the right framework or model for understanding the future.

For just a moment, please put aside what you know or think you know and consider what I am about to tell you. You are an atheist. I am a Christian. I represent an extreme minority view at present but very strongly believe that, as AI progresses, which it will, more Christians will begin to agree with you and me that AI represents a serious threat.

In fact, you know very well that the source of most Christian beliefs and teachings are rooted in the Bible and, even though you most likely do not believe that the Bible contains the inspired writings of prophets given brief glimpses of the future, I do.

You also probably know that a number of visions that were recorded speak of a terrible and horrifying entity that arises at some point in the future called the "beast." The prophet Daniel in the Old Testament and John in the book of Revelation both had very similar visions about this creature or entity and, in both cases, they say that all of humanity is in complete awe because of its power and might.

Obviously, you understand what I'm saying. I agree and believe as you do when it comes to the power of AI, but here's the thing: if you assume that the framework I present is true--that the Bible already predicted the rise of AI long ago and that it will be a terrible force for evil--then, as an atheist, are you still concerned if, as the Bible indicates, the only people it will kill are those who refuse to worship it as a god?

If an all-powerful, superintelligent AI gave you that choice--to accept it as a god or die--what would you choose? More importantly, if you knew this choice will eventually be given and that it'll be mostly Christians that are killed, do you still care to warn the world?