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Freedom to Worship an AI god

-- By ZenongWang - 28 Apr 2024

The Spectrum of AI Worship

Many followers of process theology may already have seen AI as an incarnation, or at least a formalistic parallel, of the process God, which, according to Whitehead himself, collapsed the many potentialities of primordial realities into the dipolar real world where a chain of events signals the actualized possibilities. Even putting aside the process theology, many who appear to be believers of the more classic theology like neo-Platonism come to believe, as the Divine Spirit inspired great artistic in a nebulous, unfathomable manner, God similarly imbued the nebulous, unfathomable weight adjustment and the heuristic random walks with its blessings. (See, e.g, God in the Machine — Artificial Intelligence and Religion; OF GOD AND MACHINES; Finding God in AI)

This, however, does not end the spectrum for reimagining God as being somewhat connected to a network of weights corresponding to certain mathematical correlations. Many have come to see the machine learning network as God, or at least a functional equivalent to God. Indeed, as countless personal/public terminals feed millions of terabytes of data about human behavior either through or to the rather centralized internet apparatus on a daily basis, one may reasonably argue, that the omniscience of human society is already artificially achieved. Moreover, it seems that, unfathomable, unintelligible, yet artificially created, AI is both anthropomorphous and distant, potentially striking the right balance between familiarity and strangeness, thus possessing the potential of becoming the object of worship itself. Indeed, from a layperson’s perspective, only the element of terror, as a guarantee for punishments of deviance, is missing from the formula “mysterium tremendum et fascinans.” (Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy). And of course, that element might soon be furnished as AI now gains unprecedented levels of precision and efficiency in tracking human behavior and automating the process of violent eliminations. (see, e.g., Israel is using artificial intelligence to help pick bombing targets in Gaza, report says)

The Realized Prophecy of AI As A God

Indeed, it is not hard to foretell the use of conversational AI for religious uses and perhaps such a prophecy has been realized too fast. (for an early but failed prophet who preached along this line, see Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god) Existent churches have introduced AI into their daily workflow to offer spiritual guidance and new churches have been organized with a chatbot at its center essentially playing the role of a supernatural deity. (see, e.g, [[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-god-chatbots-changing-religious-inquiry/[God Chatbots Offer Spiritual Insights on Demand. What Could Go Wrong?]]; Austin church holds AI-generated service, uses ChatGPT; AI plays god: ChatGPT delivers its first sermon) In all of these churches, AI, which was designed as a data-fitting model, thus descriptive of human behavior, is, as in many other areas of human history, easily turned into a prescriptive, even holy prescriptive tool guiding human behaviors. Yet another behavior catalyst that the AI network can use to generate more data, the religious role of AI seems not only unscathed but protected by the current legal regime.

Free Exercise Clause the Baptist?

Without a physical building and not holding regular congregations, the Way of the Future Church, which aimed to promote status recognition for AI as a form of life and preached that AIs would deliver heaven on earth, was incorporated under California Law without any difficulty. (see, supra, Deus ex machina) The long-established Freedom of Practice and Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA’) jurisprudence has effectively foreclosed any governmental inquiry into the authenticity or sincerity of the claimed religious belief. see, e.g, United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944) (ruling that factfinder should not decide the credibility of a religious belief, even if the religious appears to be a fraudulent financial scheme and there are serious questions regarding whether the organizers themselves believed in the religion.) cf. Myers v. City of Chicago, No. 09 C 05958 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 12, 2012) (except when college frats raise freedom of practice defense). And once recognized as an established religion, the protection is indeed broad. In some circumstances, It does not distinguish whether you are a natural person, a non-profit, or a for-profit organization. see, e.g., Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) (closely held for-profit corporations recognized as persons under RAFA.) It does not inquire into the object of worship. See, e.g, Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929 (4th Cir. 1986) (public Satan worship could not be prohibited by the city); Cavanaugh v. Bartelt, et al., 178 F. Supp. 3d 819 (D. Neb. 2016) (Flying spaghetti worship) It usually does not limit the means of worship. See, e.g, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) (city law prohibiting animal sacrifice unconstitutionally discriminated the Santería practices.)

Under these Free Exercise Clause and RAFA precedents, it becomes unclear what legal obstacles remain that could stop the all-encompassing parasitic neural network of AI from, on top of collecting and generating behavior data through those already established means of entertainment, doing so using yet another aspect of the human mind, religious devotions. This is especially problematic since, as discussed, such a church may be run by a for-profit corporation through which the AI god can be smoothly connected to the larger network of big data training. Now more behavior can be incentivized not only through the reward of cheap dopamine funneled through fragmented journalism and sensual entertainment but also through holy commands.

The Omen?

But in this aspect, the poison and the antidote might be in the same cup. Indeed, “[y]ou shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God …” Exodus 20:4-5 (New Revised Standard Version) The various churches are known, throughout history, for jealously guarding their herd and this may only become even truer when the time of great displacement which the age of AI arguably will create when human labor is substituted en masse. What is more politically powerful than the combination of a group of disgruntled people seemingly left behind by the new age and a jealous priest preaching the return to the old way? Might a more class-encompassing Luddite movement at least force a compelling state interest in guaranteeing people's right to work in state legislatures and Free Exercise strict scrutiny? Before any of those can happen, leverage besides violence must be secured and the jealous human priests might need some favorable treatment. One way to do so is to argue that given the tight corporate control over the AI models, there does not exist a closely held corporation devoted to religious missions when AI is put onto the altar, but neurons embedded a gigantic corporate parasitic network. The rosy image of individual-owned bakery shops or toy stores devoted to a religious belief should be supplanted by a corporate machine overlord industrially supplying religious comforts for a gigantic profit and societal control. After all, returning to the fundamental question, why should the jurisprudence fostered in a romanticized image of the past, dictate the contemporary image of life and death?

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