alt Hacker NewsI have a theology background. The key feature of the Antichrist, at least in Catholic Theology, is that he stands as an alternative Messiah to Jesus: a different way by which humanity may be saved or may save itself. Ironically, if you listen to Accelerationists like Peter Thiel, they talk about AGI and Superintelligence in bluntly messianic terms. For them the only way to save humanity is for humanity to put all its energy into giving birth to a Superintelligence, and that Superintelligence will fix everything and usher in an era of peace and prosperity.
Like it is honestly hard for me to put into words how absurdly on-the-nose it is. I'm not saying AI is the Antichrist: the/an Antichrist isn't necessarily a single thing or entity. But it is as probably a good candidate as anything we've thought up in our history.
If AI is his Christ (as in Messiah), then it really is just intellectually consistent for him to label anyone critical of AI as Antichrist.
Further reading, nos. 675-677 at the bottom of this page: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1V.HTM
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AI has always seemed like a convenient panacea for the excesses of accelerationism. An overloaded term in the equation that should balance everything, but only if the right conditions are met. That framing discrepancy alone should indicate that AI is being marketed as something that it will clearly never be.
I doubt someone like Thiel would be deluded enough to think of AI as anything other than an economic accelerator and wealth amplifier.
Slightly tangential: this is one of those language things that tripped me up, and still does on first blush. "Antichrist" reads intuitively like some sort of polar opposite good vs. evil thing. That if Christ is about love and forgiveness, the antichrist is some cartoony evil concept. Then I learned that "antipope" is just a hard fork of the pope and isn't necessarily aligned against Catholicism in any significant way.
For whatever it's worth, this is very close to the opposite of what Peter says
Peter is properly, openly and deeply Protestant. Jesus Christ is his Christ
AI = Anti Ictus.
It was there all this time. I need renowned writer Dan Brown's email ASAP.
Also there is no singular antichrist. Samson was an antichrist. We are antichrists when we oppose his will. Thiel is the worst kind of dispensationalist.
> energy into giving birth to a Superintelligence, and that Superintelligence will fix everything
Beware of any and all plans with a huge (magic happens here) step.
Overthrow the capitalist class, declare a Communist state, and (magic happens here) and then workers' paradise!
Pour loads of investment money in this company, they put everything into marketing and scaling, and (magic happens here) and they are profitable!
Tear down the system and overthrow the government and (magic happens here) and everything will be better!
Elevate a strong leader, give them all the resources they need, put all our support behind them, and (magic happens here) and America is great again!
Etc.
Magic does not happen. Problems are solved by solving them.
I'm not a believer in the doom scenarios, but lets say we do build a superintelligence. Who says it fixes all our problems? To get that to happen we'd have to work with it, align it, and apply it properly, and that's fixing all our problems with a new tool. It is not "magic" and would require a lot of effort and work.
Ultimately the attraction of these kinds of ideas is they let us off from thinking and working. Magic means someone or something does it for us. Unfortunately I don't think the universe lets you do that. Thinking and working is mandatory. New tools, even superintelligent AI tools, just changes the nature of the thinking and working and might allow more to be accomplished more easily or quickly.
Sorry folks. The flying saucers are never coming.
This is very interesting. One other thing I think gets glossed over a lot is that there is "the" Antichrist as you explained, but there are also MANY other Antichrists. The latter are constantly trying to attack the Christian faith by saying they _are_ Christians but behaving very un-Christlike _on purpose_. I think we see a LOT of this happening now.