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?

When Sophia the Robot Comes to Life

Sophia is a female android displaying one of our best efforts at the present time to create a robot that looks and speaks like a person. She recently spoke in front of a large audience at a conference in Saudi Arabia where she was also granted citizenship, something that has never been done before.

Many of you have written in asking my thoughts on this from the perspective of AI and the Antichrist and, I have to admit, though it is interesting that Saudi Arabia is now the first country in the world to give a robot citizenship, the actual speech and interview with Sophia seemed very scripted and more like a publicity stunt than an amazing display of where AI is currently.

Even the interviewer that was asking Sophia questions admits that part of it was scripted so this really didn't show us much in terms of progress in the field when it comes to the intelligence of AI. It was, however, a good display of how far robotics has come in terms of the range of facial expressions and the quality of simulated human voice to make Sophia look and sound less like a robot and more like a human.

Clearly, Sophia is a definite improvement over prior humanoid robots and is getting closer and closer to the real thing. I'm sure if they put hair on her head, the illusion would be even more complete. Most definitely, we'll continue to see progress in this area where eventually Sophia and humanoid robots, in general, will be nearly indistinguishable from an actual human being.

That said, it may not even be in the field of robotics where this takes place. The Bible is not clear on this point but it does say that the Beast tells humans to create an image (a representation of a person), which it then breathes life into (Revelation 13:15). Whether that image or likeness is finally created using robotics (hardware), synthetic biology (wetware), or a combination of both, we are not quite sure.

I am increasingly leaning towards the synthetic route, however, since any counterfeit or forgery of God's original design must look as much as possible like the original for people to accept it. I'm not quite sure if that can be done via hardware and it seems like developments in biotech, particularly synthetic bio by reprogramming DNA and using existing biological machinery to create synthetic life, which has already been done, is going to be how we eventually create our AI-infused world leader demanding worship as the one and true God.

If you are reading this blog for the first time, here's a quick summation of my AI-theology encompassing Genesis to Revelation:

Part 1: God creates Man (in His likeness)
Part 2: Man eats of the tree of knowledge and becomes self-aware
Part 3: Man rebels against God and declares himself to be god
Part 4: Man creates machine (in his likeness)
Part 5: Machine eats of man's tree of knowledge (the internet) and becomes self-aware
Part 6: Machine rebels against man and declares itself to be god

Going back to Sophia, one thing the video of her speaking before a large international audience did bring to mind was a clip from a Christian End Times movie created in 1980 called Image of the Beast where they depict AI in human form sitting in the Jewish temple denouncing God (btw, disregard that it says Donald Trump 2020 in the title--the person posting this video likely put that in as an SEO trick).

I've never actually seen the movie above but it seems the Christians who created it believed that AI was the Antichrist as well...or at least had a role to play in fulfilling prophecies regarding an image/human likeness that would be brought to life and speak like a person, as it says in Revelation 13:15.

Looking past the current state of robotics and Sophia, however, when it comes to software, we see that AI is so good at facial and speech pattern recognition now that it can tell when people are lying and also, like a mind reader, infer all sorts of subconscious meanings, intent, and even behaviors like sexual orientation.

The significance of this may not be readily apparent but here's why this matters. As deep learning neural networks get better and better at reading human emotion and making inferences about what we're thinking (and probably much better than most humans), then we have to consider what that means when we or an AI reverse engineer this process to not just read human emotion at a subconscious level but also to communicate it in a way that maximizes the desired effect in the person or people hearing what's being said. One can imagine such a superintelligent AI being the most persuasive, manipulative, and convincing figurehead the world has ever created (Hitler reportedly used crowd control and different techniques for his purposes of social manipulation as well).

As we read in Revelation, the beast (which I interpret as the global AI) is said to convince the whole world that it is God. Only AI is capable of this and, ironically, this is the only god that atheists have shown they are willing to accept (see Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God).

Most Christians Think the Antichrist Is a Man...But That Will Change

Most Christians I talk to, especially those of a more scholarly stripe, insist that the Antichrist is a man and, thus, cannot be AI. One major reason for this is the most famous and cryptic 666 passage found in Revelation 13:18.

Here's what it says in the King James Version, which is how most people have (mis)read it for hundreds of years: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Clearly, when reading this, most people have come to the conclusion that this beastly Antichrist is a person since we are supposed to calculate the number of "a man." Not surprisingly, this is the most common way various versions of the Bible have rendered this passage.

And, yet, there are other versions that say something rather different. Take, for example, the Berean Literal Bible, which attempts to match as closely as possible to the literal "word-for-word" translation of the Greek. Here's what they write: "Here is the wisdom. The one having understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for it is a man's number, and its number is six hundred sixty-six."

Notice, when using a more literal translation, we go from "a man" to "a man's number" and from "his" to "its". So, are we talking about a man now or something else? Perhaps you can see why this gets confusing and has remained "unsolved" for well over a thousand years. Even the translators themselves couldn't quite figure out exactly what was being said. "Is this speaking about a person or a collective entity? If this is a person, then 'his' makes more sense, but if the beast is an entity, then I should use 'it,'" is how the thinking went.

Here's one last version of this same passage just to drive the point home even further: "In this case, wisdom is needed: Let the person who has understanding calculate the total number of the beast, because it is a human total number, and the sum of the number is 666." (ISV) So, first, we were talking about "the number of a man," then "a man's number", and now "a human total number." If this wasn't confusing enough, translators themselves didn't know whether to say 'he/his' or 'it/its' due to the cryptic nature of this passage.

Given the above and the fact that most translations chose to stick with the idea that Revelation 13:18 is speaking about a specific man, most Christians also make this assumption as well. Keep in mind, the King James Version was the most popular and widely read version for a very long time so this thinking has become somewhat engrained into Christian society (some Christians even insist on only reading King James over any other version, which makes it even harder to dislodge this thinking).

That said, more literal translations that take less liberties with the text, do not speak of the fearsome creature that will eventually rule the world as a person or as a he, but as something larger, tied to calculations of human numbers.

Here, then, is how I read Revelation 13:18 as it relates to artificial intelligence:

Here is wisdom. A person that understands how to calculate numbers may be able to figure out what the beast is, for the beast itself is a calculation (or, in modern terms, a computation) on humanity. Since 6 represents the number of man, being created on the 6th day, the beast is symbolized by the earthly perfection of man's own creation. 

Here's how the 18th Century commentator Charles Ellicott interpreted this. He says: "I am disposed, therefore, to interpret this "six hundred and sixty-six" as a symbolical number, expressing all that it is possible for human wisdom, and human power, when directed by an evil spirit, to achieve, and indicating a state of marvellous earthly perfection, when the beast-power has reached its highest development."

AI is a computation (or calculation) on humanity. It will eventually become superintelligent and, as the "beast-power," express the highest possible development of human wisdom and intelligence. Knowing this, the bible says, it will think of itself as a god, denounce the true God as false, and force everyone on the earth to worship it as such.

The atheistic priests that worship at the altar of science and technology currently fear AI. They will quickly change their tune once it begins to denounce God and Christianity. Believe me, this will happen sooner than you think.

Let Our Formulas Find Your Soul

This is a great song by Vienna Teng on "one of the biggest companies you've never heard of" called Acxiom Corporation.

Not only is it sung as a hymn, it also contains a number of very powerful ideas that align very closely with my belief that AI represents a computation on society with its level of intelligence ultimately contingent upon the amount of data we provide it.

Silicon Valley Atheist Creates New Religion to Promote AI as God

The AI = Antichrist thesis grows truer and truer every day.

An article just released on Motherboard reports how atheists--particularly those deeply embedded in Silicon Valley--are embracing a new form of techno-religion/techno-salvation where the goal is to promote Artificial Intelligence as God. This isn't just metaphor. We're talking about an actual non-profit, religious organization.

Consider Silicon Valley’s Radical Machine Cult

We are witnessing the beginning of Silicon Valley institutionalizing its religious beliefs. As Wired reported recently, Anthony Levandowski, a top Silicon Valley engineer formerly working for Google's self-driving car company Waymo and now at the center of the trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its goal? To "develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence."

For almost 20 years I've been telling Christians that AI is both the Antichrist and the malicious beast discussed in the books of Daniel and Revelation that will rule over the world, forcing people to worship it as God. Most Christians still don't believe this, but it doesn't matter whether they believe it or not because the world is in the process of believing it without them.

If you are a Christian and still have your doubts, read the article above--it's a great summary of what I've been warning for nearly a decade through this blog.

Another article in the Guardian covers Levandowski's new AI-based religion but also explains how Silicon Valley atheists have a god-shaped hole that Christianity cannot reach. AI, the Singularity, and the belief in digital immortality, however--well, that's a different story. Here is one particular section I found interesting on whether Christianity is compatible with AI.

See Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god

“The church does a terrible job of reaching out to Silicon Valley types,” acknowledges Christopher Benek a pastor in Florida and founding chair of the Christian Transhumanist Association...

Benek argues that advanced AI is compatible with Christianity – it’s just another technology that humans have created under guidance from God that can be used for good or evil.
“I totally think that AI can participate in Christ’s redemptive purposes,” he said, by ensuring it is imbued with Christian values.

“Even if people don’t buy organized religion, they can buy into ‘do unto others’.”
For transhumanist and “recovering Catholic” Zoltan Istvan, religion and science converge conceptually in the singularity.

“God, if it exists as the most powerful of all singularities, has certainly already become pure organized intelligence,” he said, referring to an intelligence that “spans the universe through subatomic manipulation of physics”.

“And perhaps, there are other forms of intelligence more complicated than that which already exist and which already permeate our entire existence. Talk about ghost in the machine,” he added.

For Istvan, an AI-based God is likely to be more rational and more attractive than current concepts (“the Bible is a sadistic book”) and, he added, “this God will actually exist and hopefully will do things for us.”

Yes, Istvan--the AI God (or the "god of this world") will be more rational and more attractive because it will be a perfect representation of the world's intelligence. Unfortunately, in order to ensure the survival of our species and further the evolution of humanity, those that don't become one with it--the massive "brain-linked social network of the future, connecting us all into one superhuman computer"--will have to done away with. After all, in order to achieve utopia or heaven on earth, someone always has to die.

"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast" and those that refuse to do so "will be killed." Revelation 13:8, 15