In recent weeks there has been a plethora of concern about the dangers of AI. One is the fear that AI will create new religions.
Israeli public intellectual Yuval Noah Harari recently told a conference in Switzerland: ‘In the future we might see the first cults and religions in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence. Of course, religions throughout history claimed that their holy books were written by unknown human intelligence. This was never true before. This could become true very, very quickly, with far-reaching consequences.’
Harari is of course right that all religions claim that their scriptures were written by a non-human intelligence, but as Christians we believe that this is true in regard to the Bible. Somewhat ironically, other religions claim their scriptures were given directly by God, whether physically or by divine dictation. This is true of the Book of Mormon, given to Joseph Smith on gold plates, and the Koran, given directly to the Prophet Mohammed.
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