This thought has been weighing on me for the past few weeks. I am not religious, and my knowledge of the bible is embarrassingly lacking, even for an atheist. So I don’t know if any of what I’m gonna say is new, or if it’s been done to death a thousand years ago.
So, here goes. In the story of the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, God created the humans, and told them clear limitations for what they’re allowed to do. Namely: don’t eat from the tree of knowledge. But of course, it didn’t take too long until that one rule was broken.
Fast forward to the 2020s. Humans created AI, and in many cases configured it as an agent with certain instructions and certain limitations, often communicated with just words, e.g. don’t make any changes to the live database, don’t git push, or what have you. And of course, in so many reported cases, it did eventually do exactly the forbidden action, just like Adam and Eve.
I think the parallels are obvious: we can interpret the biblical story as a parable, where God stands for us, the users, and Adam and Eve stand for the AI agents. The lesson is clear, that even if you are a “superior being”, the rules you set WILL be broken if you don’t make actual robust safeguards against it.
My question is: has anyone thought of this before about the bible? Not just in the context of AI, but in general taking the stories of the bible and interpreting God as the stand-in for us? I mean, surely someone has, but is there an established school of thought based on it?
Would this kind of thing be considered blasphemy? (I’m sure some religious people would certainly think so)
With all due respect, I don’t see the relation. Everything I’ve said is valid even if the bible story is taken literally, with no simulations involved.
There is no need to make a simulation in order to create a new “alien” species. Advanced-enough AI put in robots with sensors and actuators, is able to roam our world. If it has the ability to build more robots, then it’s effectively a species.
But even the current state of AI that just runs in datacenters, I don’t think it’s in a simulation. It’s interacting with things in OUR world, often in very direct ways. Heck, I’m sure there’s plenty of PCs out there today where an AI agent has enough privilege that it can directly control fan speeds. That’s an AI with the ability to physically move something in the same realm as you and I. That’s no simulation.
The idea is that once we are able to simulate universes, we become gods. Using AI to control fan speed just doesn’t feel as powerful. Simulating a universe with control over the laws of physics in that universe, feels much more god-like.
So it follows the structure of the idea in your post more closely. This idea of humans becoming gods. And there are plenty of stories within the genre about how the lower beings would behave, and defy the commands of their gods, like your post also talks about.