It can give me answers to all my questions. It must be a superior intellect.

A New World Religion Has Exploded on the Scene

Faith in AI is as powerful as faith in a divine being.

When confronted with the unknown, we reach out for help. Previous generations reached out to the deity of their upbringing. Now suddenly everyone has a new all-knowing source that is ever-present and never sleeps.

For the record: I am not against Artificial Intelligence. I am appalled by the uncontrolled hysterical pace at which mankind races to build and enable an intelligence of unknown capability. Shades of Manhattan Project slink quietly by.

And now humanity is granting AI a level of trust formerly reserved for the great mind of eternity. "Trust but verify" has lost its meaning because verification is all too often impossible. We are left with only 'trust', and the evidence points to a troubling trend in that direction.

This came home when I read an article in The Register describing a study done by a group of researchers at French and Italian universities. The study showed that participants relying on AI "became much worse – the accuracy was only one third – but they were twice as confident." Their AI helper had given them an answer, but even when that answer was wrong, the human was very confident they were right. ¹

This is precisely the sort of thing one finds among true believers of every religion in the world. Religious leaders are notorious for leading their flocks astray. However, confidence levels among followers remains high even in the face of clear evidence that the leaders are not trustworthy. I am confident you can think of your own examples.

The problem here is one of 'Knowing vs. Believing'. We ask an AI service for an answer because we are in a hurry, or because we have a question related to something in a field where we have no experience. We tend to simply accept the answer (or is it hallucination?), doing little fact-checking before adopting the answer as truth. To make matters worse, in some circles if you question the AI response, you are derided as a Luddite or some sort of deviant.

One writer put it thus, "Our computing culture has become so ubiquitous and insular, so devoted and devotional, that it repeatedly recycles the tropes of traditional religions." ² We establish environments where faith in the tech is expected if you plan to stick around.

The parallels between faith in AI and religious faith are not lost on the religious.
As one professor of religious studies put it,

In its performance, it is thus experienced as all-encompassing, addressable at any moment, and superior to human beings. People have AI models draft texts and prepare decisions because they interpret their answers as authoritative. Through such attributions, AI practice becomes comparable to religious practice. ³

Also interesting is the fact that not only humans are developing faith in AI. AI agents themselves have their own social media platform and have created their own religion. Didn't see that coming, now did you? ⁴

The various forms of AI are just going to get better and better at compiling, classifying and interpreting all of the data they can ingest. No one disputes that. Humans will, as a result, evidence less desire to think for themselves and will rely more and more on the all-seeing eye of AI to guide their path.

I just don't know if that is a thing that works. Humanity has endured thus far. Perhaps an electronic god will just become the norm, who knows.

I, for one, am glad I'm old.