The most important characteristic of an AI cult is that its gods (Godbots?) will be created by the AI developers and not the other way around:
Levandowski may be an outlier but, we are told, he reflects a Silicon Valley mindset:
Nobody but Levandowski knows if he really believes he can create a Godbot. Considering his obsession with artificial intelligence, it is altogether possible that he does. And while that may seem nuts, people have started religions for stranger reasons. The Way of the Future could be an elaborate tax scam and this still would not necessarily invalidate its claims to be a religion; people sincerely believe in Scientology, after all. Further, Levandowski’s belief isn’t so strange within the context of Silicon Valley, which has long invested religious hopes in its creations. Sarah Jones, “Silicon Valley’s Religious Drive” at The New Republic
Dan Brown, the famous author of The DaVinci Code, thinks that an AI-based collective consciousness created by global connections will replace God: “Our need for that exterior god, that sits up there and judges us … will diminish and eventually disappear.”
At New Scientist, Sean O’Neil asked, “Could we become gods?” (2015) and cognitive roboticist Murray Shanahan replied, “There’s nothing magical about the brain; it doesn’t transcend physics. So, of course, it is possible to build a physical entity that can do anything we can do.” For the AI culture, that seems to mean yes, we can become
Commentator Tyler O’Neil sees an inherent contradiction in this drive for “creating a deity of artificial intelligence and then worshipping it.” But technocrat religion seems to aspire to control rather than worship or—at most—it worships entirely on its own terms. The Godbot can be developed or not; likewise, it can be worshipped or not, as the believer wishes… More. “Tales of an invented god” at Mind Matters
See also: AI as an emergent religion Science philosopher Mike Keas’s new book discusses how AI and ET are merging, to create a religion of futurist magic
The Idol with Feet of Silicon Robert J. Marks: Religions based on artificial intelligence (AI) cannot transcend the limits of computers
and
Can machines be persons? What would the real effect of legal personhood for machines be?
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