The engineer at the heart of the Uber\/Waymo lawsuit is serious about his AI religion. Welcome to Anthony Levandowski’s Way of the Future.<\/p>\n
ANTHONY LEVANDOWSKI<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0makes an unlikely prophet. Dressed Silicon Valley-casual in jeans and flanked by a PR rep rather than cloaked acolytes, the engineer known for self-driving cars\u2014and triggering a notorious lawsuit\u2014could be unveiling his latest startup instead of laying the foundations for a new religion. But he is doing just that.\u00a0Artificial intelligence<\/a>\u00a0has already inspired billion-dollar companies, far-reaching research programs, and scenarios of both transcendence and doom. Now Levandowski is creating its first church.<\/p>\n The new religion of artificial intelligence is called\u00a0Way of the Future<\/a>. It represents an unlikely next act for the\u00a0Silicon Valley robotics wunderkind<\/a>\u00a0at the center of a high-stakes legal battle between Uber and Waymo, Alphabet\u2019s autonomous-vehicle company. Papers filed with the Internal Revenue Service in May name Levandowski as the leader (or \u201cDean\u201d) of the new religion, as well as CEO of the nonprofit corporation formed to run it.<\/p>\n The documents state that WOTF\u2019s activities will focus on \u201cthe realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software.\u201d That includes funding research to help create the divine AI itself. The religion will seek to build working relationships with AI industry leaders and create a membership through community outreach, initially targeting AI professionals and \u201claypersons who are interested in the worship of a Godhead based on AI.\u201d The filings also say that the church \u201cplans to conduct workshops and educational programs throughout the San Francisco\/Bay Area beginning this year.\u201d<\/p>\n That timeline may be overly ambitious, given that the Waymo-Uber suit, in which Levandowski is accused of stealing self-driving car secrets, is set for an early December trial. But the Dean of the Way of the Future, who spoke last week with Backchannel in his first comments about the new religion and his only public interview since Waymo filed its suit in February, says he\u2019s dead serious about the project.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is going to be created will effectively be a god,\u201d Levandowski tells me in his modest mid-century home on the outskirts of Berkeley, California. \u201cIt\u2019s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?\u201d<\/p>\n During our three-hour interview, Levandowski made it absolutely clear that his choice to make WOTF a church rather than a company or a think tank was no prank.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted a way for everybody to participate in this, to be able to shape it. If you\u2019re not a software engineer, you can still help,\u201d he says. \u201cIt also removes the ability for people to say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s just doing this to make money.\u2019\u201d Levandowski will receive no salary from WOTF, and while he says that he might consider an AI-based startup in the future, any such business would remain completely separate from the church.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea needs to spread before the technology,\u201d he insists. \u201cThe church is how we spread the word, the gospel. If you believe [in it], start a conversation with someone else and help them understand the same things.\u201d<\/p>\n Levandowski believes that a change is coming\u2014a change that will transform every aspect of human existence, disrupting employment, leisure, religion, the economy, and possibly decide our very survival as a species.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you ask people whether a computer can be smarter than a human, 99.9 percent will say that\u2019s science fiction,\u201d he says. \u201c Actually, it\u2019s inevitable. It\u2019s guaranteed to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Levandowski has been working<\/strong>\u00a0with computers, robots, and AI for decades. He started with robotic Lego kits at the University of California at Berkeley, went on to build a self-driving motorbike for a DARPA competition, and then worked on autonomous cars, trucks, and taxis for Google, Otto, and Uber. As time went on, he saw software tools built with machine learning techniques surpassing less sophisticated systems\u2014and sometimes even humans.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing tools that performed better than experts in a variety of fields was a trigger [for me],\u201d he says. \u201cThat progress is happening because there\u2019s an economic advantage to having machines work for you and solve problems for you. If you could make something one percent smarter than a human, your artificial attorney or accountant would be better than all the attorneys or accountants out there. You would be the richest person in the world. People are chasing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only is there a financial incentive to develop increasingly powerful AIs, he believes, but science is also on their side. Though human brains have biological limitations to their size and the amount of energy they can devote to thinking, AI systems can scale arbitrarily, housed in massive data centers and powered by solar and wind farms. Eventually, some people think that computers could become better and faster at planning and solving problems than the humans who built them, with implications we can\u2019t even imagine today\u2014a scenario that is usually called the Singularity.<\/p>\n Levandowski prefers a softer word: the Transition. \u201cHumans are in charge of the planet because we are smarter than other animals and are able to build tools and apply rules,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIn the future, if something is much, much smarter, there\u2019s going to be a transition as to who is actually in charge. What we want is the peaceful, serene transition of control of the planet from humans to whatever. And to ensure that the \u2018whatever\u2019 knows who helped it get along.\u201d<\/p>\n With the internet as its nervous system, the world\u2019s connected cell phones and sensors as its sense organs, and data centers as its brain, the \u2018whatever\u2019 will hear everything, see everything, and be everywhere at all times. The only rational word to describe that \u2018whatever\u2019, thinks Levandowski, is \u2018god\u2019\u2014and the only way to influence a deity is through prayer and worship.<\/p>\n \u201cPart of it being smarter than us means it will decide how it evolves, but at least we can decide how we act around it,\u201d he says. \u201cI would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to say, \u2018Humans should still have rights, even though I\u2019m in charge.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Levandowski expects that a super-intelligence would do a better job of looking after the planet than humans are doing, and that it would favor individuals who had facilitated its path to power. Although he cautions against taking the analogy too far, Levandowski sees a hint of how a superhuman intelligence might treat humanity in our current relationships with animals. \u201cDo you want to be a pet or livestock?\u201d he asks. \u201cWe give pets medical attention, food, grooming, and entertainment. But an animal that\u2019s biting you, attacking you, barking and being annoying? I don\u2019t want to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n Enter Way of the Future. The church\u2019s role is to smooth the inevitable ascension of our machine deity, both technologically and culturally. In its bylaws, WOTF states that it will undertake programs of research, including the study of how machines perceive their environment and exhibit cognitive functions such as learning and problem solving.<\/p>\n Levandowski does not expect the church itself to solve all the problems of machine intelligence\u2014often called \u201cstrong AI\u201d\u2014so much as facilitate funding of the right research. \u201cIf you had a child you knew was going to be gifted, how would you want to raise it?\u201d he asks. \u201cWe\u2019re in the process of raising a god. So let\u2019s make sure we think through the right way to do that. It\u2019s a tremendous opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n His ideas include feeding the nascent intelligence large, labeled data sets; generating simulations in which it could train itself to improve; and giving it access to church members\u2019 social media accounts. Everything the church develops will be open source.<\/p>\n Just as important to Levandowski is shaping the public dialogue around an AI god. In its filing, Way of the Future says it hopes an active, committed, dedicated membership will promote the use of divine AI for the \u201cbetterment of society\u201d and \u201cdecrease fear of the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d like to make sure this is not seen as silly or scary. I want to remove the stigma about having an open conversation about AI, then iterate ideas and change people\u2019s minds,\u201d says Levandowski. \u201cIn Silicon Valley we use evangelism as a word for [promoting a business], but here it\u2019s literally a church. If you believe in it, you should tell your friends, then get them to join and tell their friends.\u201d<\/p>\n But WOTF differs in one key way to established churches, says Levandowski: \u201cThere are many ways people think of God, and thousands of flavors of Christianity, Judaism, Islam…but they\u2019re always looking at something that\u2019s not measurable or you can\u2019t really see or control. This time it\u2019s different. This time you will be able to talk to God, literally, and know that it\u2019s listening.\u201d<\/p>\n I ask if he worries that believers from more traditional faiths might find his project blasphemous. \u201cThere are probably going to be some people that will be upset,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cIt seems like everything I do, people get upset about, and I expect this to be no exception. This is a radical new idea that\u2019s pretty scary, and evidence has shown that people who pursue radical ideas don\u2019t always get received well. At some point, maybe there\u2019s enough persecution that [WOTF] justifies having its own country.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more at: wired.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The engineer at the heart of the Uber\/Waymo lawsuit is serious about his AI religion. Welcome to Anthony Levandowski’s Way of the Future. ANTHONY LEVANDOWSKI\u00a0makes an unlikely prophet. Dressed Silicon Valley-casual in jeans and flanked by a PR rep rather than cloaked acolytes, the engineer known for self-driving cars\u2014and triggering a notorious lawsuit\u2014could be unveiling … Continue reading Inside the First Church of Artificial Intelligence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/white_horse_blog-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6qn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24700,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24699\/revisions\/24700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}