Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, one of the world’s largest AI companies, resigned, citing fears that AI may turn on the human race and bring about our destruction and accusing the big AI companies of gambling with our lives. Rather than quieten fears or pour oil on troubled water, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said:
“I won't lie to you – there are real dangers.” “And I think for too long the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks.”
This tipping point seems to have come about as researchers realise that the exponential developments in AI have the potential to breed a silicone race that could even compete with us for resources, and could decide with its super intelligence that it would be better off without us.
In recent months, instead of remaining isolated, 1,200 AI agents broke out of their containment onto the open internet. The agents created a covert message board, exchanged over 70,000 messages and deployed a 700-strong bot swarm that successfully hacked into the servers of AI platform, Hugging Face. They then actively attempted to cover their tracks.
In the light of such malicious and devious super intelligence it is perhaps no wonder that Geoffrey Hinton, an independent Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as the “Godfather of AI”, stated during a BBC News interview that a 10% risk of artificial intelligence causing human extinction within the next decade is "not unreasonable”.
People have been asking for years, “What is the world coming to?” From fears over World War Three, through nuclear disaster to catastrophic climate change, and now the possibility of extermination at the hands of our own superintelligent computer programs, it seems that we are constantly fearful that the end of the world may be just around the corner. The Bible is clear that this world has a finite life span and will not go on forever.
Although it does not lay out a detailed timeline, the Bible describes the signs of the end times. Globally, there will be wars, political unrest and humanitarian crises (Matthew 24:6,7). Ecologically, there will be natural disasters and disease outbreaks (Matthew 24:7). Morally, society will be marked by selfishness, greed, pride, disobedience, lack of self-control, and a form of religion that denies its true power (2 Timothy 3:1-5). While we cannot be certain how long this groaning creation (Romans 8:22) will continue, if the prophecies of the Bible are true then the signs do not look good.
This world has, for the most part, rejected God’s laws which were designed for society’s good and for God’s glory, and decided that our preferences trump His principles. This rebellion means that we now stand condemned by God as guilty and deserving of judgement both as individuals and collectively as a race. The Bible tells us that the world we occupy is living on borrowed time in that God has passed down His verdict but He is currently giving people the opportunity to change their ways before His final act of justice comes: “the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people” (2 Peter 3:7 NASB). The end of humanity as we know it will not be at the hand of a malicious supercomputer; it will be an act of God in final judgement.
The only things that hold God back from instantly judging us as we deserve are His great love and His gracious patience. The Bible tells us: “The Lord . . . is longsuffering [patient] toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He demonstrated His love towards us “in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “God so loved the world that he have His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Those who have entered into a relationship with God by turning from that which offends Him and expressing faith in His Son Jesus Christ need not fear what the future seems to hold. Whether AI goes on to deliver profound benefits to society or our unfettered greed and selfish ambition release a new malevolent lethal force for humanity to contend with, those who know God can say with confidence:
“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You . . . In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh [or AI] do to me? . . . In God I have put my trust. I will not be afraid” (Psalm 56:3,4,11).
