Henry Imler May 20th, 2008

A few months ago, I cam across an interesting article in the American Academy of Religion quarterly journal entitled “Apocalyptic AI: Religion and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence” by Robert Geraci.  It is pretty interesting stuff.  Geraci looks at the apoclypticism in Science Fiction writers, analyzing it through the lens of the apocalyptic framework common to first century Jewish and Christian religious groups.

I finally tracked down a PFD of the article.  If you are a fan of Science Fiction or interested in relgion, I highly recomend giving this a read.

“Apocalyptic AI: Religion and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence” by Robert Geraci

Abstract:

Popular science publications in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) reveal a striking merger between apocalyptic religious thought and scientific research. Three major elements characterize early Jewish and Christian apocalypticism: alienation within the world, desire for the establishment of a heavenly new world, and the transformation of human beings so that they may live in that world in purified bodies. In Apocalyptic AI, these characteristics are attributed scientific authority. Apocalyptic AI advocates, frustrated by the limitations of bodily life, look forward to a virtual world inhabited by intelligent machines and human beings who have left their bodies. Having downloaded their consciousnesses into machines, human beings will possess enhanced mental abilities and, through their infinite replicability, immortality.

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