Will GPT render God obsolete?

Is the concept of God a form of “belief technology” that mankind created to face the uncertainties of life and death? Is it undergoing a gradual replacement by AI technology?

Forgive me if you find this question to be offensive.

While I was raised as a Catholic boy, I left behind all interest organized religions and the Bible over fifty years ago. Somec readers may think my question to be naive or ignorant. However, I consider it a legitimate question and one I wish to pose today.

Prayer is wishful thinking?

Prayer, as I understand it, is as request made to God for a positive outcome to a threatening situation. The threat can be personal or related to family, community, national or global. If the request is granted, success is attributed to “the grace of God”. If the request fails, “the Will of God” is offered as the explanation.

GPT as advice derived from collective human knowledge.

I understand GPT 4.0 as the latest and most powerful tool to synthesize massive bodies of digitized human information and opinion into a concise and useful summary. It is the most significant source of nearly instant knowledge available on the planet. It is a tool designed to respond to specific user requests and generate relevant answers derived and summarized to represent the ‘collective wisdom’ on the subject. Another way to succinctly describe it: GPT scans, surveys and aggregates specific information contained in millions of digital documents and images that are Internet-accessible in order to satisfy a human request.

While GPT 4.0 is impressive, future versions will become progressively better at performing its current and additional functions. In a sense, I consider this technology to be in direct competition with prayer. GPT was designed to solve many of the problems that prayer is intended to address.

Fear drives human behaviour.

Our species has evolved continually throughout history. Much of civilizational progress was achieved by the human ability to solve real and pressing problems.

Religious myths, traditions and institutions could be seen through the lens of phase of human evolution. ‘Faith-tech’ offered “solutions” to problems that early humans faced when they were much less sophisticated in creating tools to protect them from harsh and dangerous living conditions. Like all human inventions, there usually comes a time when a newer, better one supplants an older, less reliable one. Will GPT be the tool that replaces the ‘faith-tech’ of prayer? Will this also be the final blow to organized religions as we have known them in the past?

Churches provide community.

The greatest value of church-going is the community-building it provides. Humans are social creatures and tribal by nature. GPT will not replace the social value of congregations but it may inspire a shift in the nature of those communities. I can imagine a day when community participation in problem-solving at the local level will be centered around the evolving powers of GPT as the accepted tool to assist in guiding public discussions and decisions.

Leadership will still be needed. GPT requires the formulation of thoughtful and well-constructed questions to achieve expected “advice” gathered and distilled from the domains of ‘collective digital human wisdom’. In a community setting such a church, the questions posed via GPT must reflect the will and priorities of the community stakeholders. This will require discussion, negotiations, agreements and the skilled formulation of GPT requests. The resulting AI advice will also require leaders to facilitate discussions within the community and negotiations regarding who and how the advice will be implemented.

The evolution of religion is nigh.

Religion and politics are siblings. They serve similar purposes and follow ‘business models’ that are essentially the same. They both promote fear-inducing narratives and offer “salvation” and protection, always with conditions to be met.

Will religion and politics merge? Will GPT provide the reason for secular social gatherings, group discussions of common issues, and the instrument for guiding democratic and collective action at the community and regional level?

Let’s image a scenario of single, young men and women gathered in church building in 2024. They have congregated to express their feeling and challenges concerning the rising cost of living and how these circumstances have shaped their reluctance to marry, have children, educating those children in “woke” teaching culture that opposes their values, and more. Now image if a more powerful GPT 5.0 was used to guide discussions and identify ways to mitigate those concerns so that family choices become less daunting. Could a scenario like this encourage our youth to put down the smart phones and engage in face-to-face discussion sessions to work through those challenges?

I posed the above scenario because I expect futurecGPT-like tools will be commonplace and their most skillful users will our younger citizens who work in problem-solving jobs and socialize daily using modern digital technologies. Most retirees are unlikely to adjust readily these changes, or have faith that a tool like GPT can be trusted as much, or more, than their conceptualizations of God and prayer.

There is certainly room for skepticism.

The future impact of artificial intelligence in our lives concerns everyone. Fear is a natural feeling when facing change with high levels of uncertainty. However, AI is already here and unlikely to go away. To ignore its possibilities for good is as dangerous as to embrace its powers without a heavy dose of caution.

Those who remain frozen in fear about AI, with no attempt to understand it, will likely continue to rely on prayer and ‘faith tech’ as their way to seek protection from future unknowns. Alternatively, those who pursue a deep understanding of AI tech’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) will likely take the lead in judiciously adopting and adapting these tools into our lives for those who are willing to embrace them.

The future is for the brave and hearty.

Life has always come with risks and challenges, but modern men and women are living in an age of tumult that is unprecedented. More information is available now than at any time in human history. This fact is a source of problems that no prior generation has faced and have little choice but to face them boldly. Turtling is not an good survival tactic.

The invention of GPT was inevitable, and it represents just one manifestation of human ingenuity to address the “information overload” problem. Those average Canadians who master it will inevitably be better off than those who don’t.

My fears about GPT go with my distrust of the ‘elite class’.

Too much money and power reside in the hands of too few elites who appear to possess wholly self-serving goals. My confusion and skepticism about their motives is associated with the actions and decisions of men and women like Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, Chrystia Freeland, Bill Gates, and many more of the world’s most wealthy and powerful people. Many of them are associated with very influential global organizations such as the WEF, the WHO, Black Rock, and the United Nations. These people are clearly working in lockstep to establish a New World Order according their understanding of “the greater good” for humanity.

For average citizens who will use GPT versions 4.0+ to make better decisions, resolve many personal problems and increase their productivity, I have no concerns about these AI-tech uses and see mostly positive outcomes.

My fear centre around the aforementioned elites, not the masses. They have access to too much money and power, and their motives have become increasing questionable especially over the pandemic years and during the “climate crisis” decades.

My greatest hope for AI is that the masses - our tens of millions of average citizens - will use GPT to make better political choices. Electoral democracy may not remain a feature of Canadian society for long, but as long as it exists, future versions of GPT may offer wise guidance to voters regarding who their elevate into the class of public office elites.

Image source: https://ramseyelbasheer.io/2021/04/19/gpt-4-artificial-intelligence-is-greater-than-you-think-not-just-an-upgrade-coming-late-2021/