Artificial Intelligence Idolatry and Hum
Artificial Intelligence Idolatry and Hum
Artificial Intelligence Idolatry and Hum
ABSTRACT
Prognostications for how AI will affect the future of humanity are greatly
enriched by theological and historical perspectives regarding the nature
and use of idols, images used to worship the gods. With the background
of the Egyptian «mouth-opening» ritual in mind, and ancient construc-
tions of seeming-autonomous statues, Scriptural accounts suggest that
pagans constructed and worshipped idols for reasons of transference —
substituting a creature for the Creator —, greed, and control. In parallel
fashion, with futurist accounts of AI and robotics in mind, an historical-
theological perspective indicates that these new technologies are often
at the service of an analogous kind of idolatry: relationship transference,
corporate and individual greed, and social control: three motives that are
encapsulated in Lewis Mumford’s prediction that, in a secular age, «man’s
final achievement, at the summit of his progress, would be to create an
ineffable electronic God». Finally, a theological account suggests a way
forward: returning to right relationships, self-gift in union with Christ
the Incarnate God, and responsibility as worship.
* Contact: —
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within sight of land. Since their ships more or less hugged the shores,
the result was a little curious. On the one hand, they often had accurate
outlines of the land; on the other hand, they failed to estimate center
mass accurately. Distances between continents, sizes of oceans, and
even the land itself was often exaggerated by stretching or shrinking or
misalignment. Such, it seems to me, is an apt metaphor for the cartog-
raphers of the technological world. They often miss center mass.
Take, for instance, Nick Bostrom’s brilliant delineation of future
kinds of artificial superintelligence: oracles, genies, sovereigns or tools.1
Bostrom explains their functions this way: oracles will give precise an-
swers or predictions to specific, complex questions; genies will perform
bounded tasks; sovereigns will accomplish more general goals; and AI
tools like present Google algorithms will operate in the background,
but with the power of elementary forces. Meanwhile, among other AI
scenarios, Max Tegmark foresees what he calls a «protector god», a
nearly omnipotent and omniscient A I gatekeeper that gives humans
the illusory feeling that they hold the reins to their fates; and an «en-
slaved god», AI controlled well enough that it never escapes its cage or
«box» created by clever programmers.2 By arguing that AI may develop
divine-like powers, Tegmark hits closer to center mass. But both au-
thors stick too close to the «visible shore» of possible futures insofar
as they fail to point to an increasingly-plausible scenario: eventually,
in one way or another, people will worship AI and robots.
This plausible future that is typically overlooked by present-day fu-
turists, with a few crucial exceptions that I will mention. For some, the
scenario I anticipate may seem unmoored from reality—implausible be-
cause too far from a familiar shore, drifting through unmarked waters:
Voltaire, after all, argued that «idolatry is false concept», for«“no nation
ever worshipped idols as such, but always a deity represented by
them».3 Therefore, my argument is made in three steps.
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cording to this view, the crème de la crème are godlike because of their
biology. The masses, without privileged birth or heroic deed — they are
the dregs.
But there was at least one way even for a low-born to break through
the glass ceiling to the clubhouse of the gods: somewhat like a name-
dropping as a social-climber, the technique involved transformation
into a quasi-divinity by interacting with an image of a god that seemed
to be alive. In her work, Gods and Robots, Adrienne Mayor documents
dozens of instances of how pre-Christian technologists created statues
of gods and goddesses, often on a massive scale, that would seemingly
or really move on their own.6 Prototypically, an idol’s movement was
facilitated by the formal ritual of an «animation of a statue», versions
of which existed throughout ancient civilizations.7 In the Egypt of the
pharaohs, for instance, it was widely believed that «The cult statue, like
any image, picture, or inscription carved or painted on the temple walls,
and like the whole temple itself, had to be animated by the living power
of the deity».8 Priests of the sun-god Ra would carry a statue to the
kings of Kent, Mercia, Wessex, and others (In Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Col-
lectanea I, Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh 1868, pp. 202–203). See Hermann Moisl,
Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and Germanic oral tradition, in «Journal of Medieval His-
tory» 7/3 (1981), pp. 215–248. Also, lib. 1, c. 15 of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis An-
glorum. Modern edition: BEDE, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, eds. Colgrave,
Bertram, Mynors, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 1969.
6. Adrienne MAYOR, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Tech-
nology, Princeton University Press, 2018. Also, Jan BREMMER, The Agency of Greek and
Roman Statues: from Homer to Constantine, in «Opuscula» 6 (2013), pp. 7-21. Numerous
ancient sources attest to this, including Dio Cassius reporting that blood and milk
would issue from the effigy of the goddess Minerva, and Strabo asserting that the image
of Athena closed its eyes even in his days.
7. Algis UZDAVINYS, Animation of Statues in Ancient Civilizations and Neoplatonism,
in P. VASSILOPOULOU et al. (eds.), Late Antique Epistemology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009,
pp. 118–140. Also, Christopher WALKER and Michael B. DICK, The Induction of the Cult
Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian mīs pī Ritual, in Born in Heaven,
Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East, Eisenbrauns,
Winona Lake, Ind. 1999, pp. 55–122.
8. UZDAVINYS, Animation of Statues in Ancient Civilizations and Neoplatonism, op. cit.,
p. 125.
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9. Ivi, p. 129. Also, David LORTON, The Theology of Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt, in
Born in Heaven, Made on Earth, pp. 123–210, who notes that both the manufacturing
process and the ritual seemingly endowed the statue with life-properties (pp. 157–158,
passim).
10. See G.K. BEALE, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry, IVP
Academic, Downers Grove, Ill. 2008,p. 67.
11. MAYOR, Gods and Robots, op. cit., p. 187.
12. Quoted in UZDAVINYS, Animation of Statues in Ancient Civilizations and Neopla-
tonism, cit., pp. 136–137.
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He then concludes: «Those who make them are like them; so are all
who trust in them» (Ps 115,8).17 This is perhaps the essence of the
Deuteronomic curse for all who craft graven images and set them up
for worship in secret (Dt 27,15). What for the Egyptian Book of the Dead
attains the height of religion, for the Hebrew prophets represents the
depth of folly and a malediction: «let them become like those senseless
gods, everyone who trusts in them!» (see Ps 135,18; Wis 14,8). In other
words, their humanity would become diminished to the extent that
they gave themselves up to the gods who could not save them.18
If making and worshipping the images of the gods freezes the idol-
ater’s soul like Hans Solo in carbonite, why would anyone do it? Sacred
Scripture suggests three chief reasons: transference, greed, and control.
Transference: Similar to psychological transference of one human
relationship to another, Scripture indicates that people
transfer the worship of the One True God for a creature represented or
encapsulated in an idol. For example, when God seemed far away on
an untouchable mountain, and when Moses tarried in his withdrawn
contemplation, the people of Israel induced Aaron to fashion an idol
from their gold (Ex 32,1.4).19 Again, when men experienced the life-giv-
ing power of the Nile, or the perennial order of the stars, they confused
the creation for the Creator and so transferred their loyalty (see Wis
13,2–4). The Book of Wisdom narrates two other plausible substitution-
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ary causes of idolatry. In grief, a father made an image of his lost child,
and gradually came to honor as a living god what was once a dead
human; then the family handed on secret rites to their descendants (Wis
14,15). In a different case, when men could not honor their distant
monarch, they set up an image to represent his rule, and to honor him
as if he were present (Wis 14,17).20 Eventually, the honor given to absent
monarchs was upgraded to worship (Wis 14,18–21).21 St. Paul summa-
rizes this transference, saying that pagans «exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals
or reptiles» (Rom 1,23), and insists that God has a purely spiritual na-
ture and is not an image made by men (Acts 17,24–25.29).22
Greed: Idolatry is often spurred by the ravenous appetites of idol mak-
ers and users. Sacred Scripture indicates that once idol-tech-
nicians notice that people are turning to their products, they accelerate
the process of manufacture and, like drug pushers, induce addictive
worship behaviors.23 According to the Book of Wisdom, after people
starting worshipping monarchs, «the ambition of craftsmen induced
20. See Richard LINTS, Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion, IVP
Academic, Downers Grove, Ill. 2015, p. 69.
21. Whether these steps are chronologically distinct is unclear; in the ANE «The
king was a sort of living statue of the gods. […] In an abundance of texts, he is referred
to as the “image of god”, especially so in ancient Egypt». LINTS, Identity and Idolatry,
op. cit., p. 69.
22. For commentary on the passage in Romans, see LINTS, Identity and Idolatry, cit.
pp. 109–111; BEALE, We Become What We Worship, cit., pp. 202–222; AQUINAS, Ad Rom.,
ed. Marietti, Roma 1929, c. 1, lects. 7–8, nn. 123–168. On Acts 17, BEALE, We Become
What We Worship, cit., pp. 196–198. Drew J. Strait’s study, while helpful, focuses unduly
on prohibitions against precious materials in critiques against idols: STRAIT, The Wisdom
of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech, in
«Journal of Biblical Literature» 136/3 (Fall 2017), pp. 609–632. Plato significantly re-
verses the order of causality: he argues that men set up visible statues to ensure the
benevolence of the living but invisible counterparts, the spiritual daemons: Laws XI,
930e–931a.
23. The greed of statute makers often exploits the lust of viewers for fantasies their
products provoke by way of transference. See George L. HERSEY, Falling in Love with
Statues: Artificial Humans from Pygmalion to the Present, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, Ill. 2009, p. 32.
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even people who did not know the monarch to intensify their worship»
(Wis 14,18). An ancient myth recounted how Medea exacted revenge
on her enemies by making a statue of Artemis appear to come alive and
to dispense hallucinogenic drugs and miracles.24 In Ephesus, the idol-
makers also used a statue of Artemis for their personal profit — not re-
venge, but money. The Acts of the Apostles illustrates a vicious circle
involving craftsman, greed, and the manipulation of statute-adorers.
After St. Paul and his companions converted Ephesians to Christianity,
the silversmith Demetrius entered the fray. Concerned that the Artemis
cult was endangered, he gathered a horde of other Artemis image-mak-
ers and said to them: «this Paul has persuaded and turned away a con-
siderable company of people, saying that gods made with hands are not
gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come
into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis
may count for nothing» (Acts 19,26–27). Seeing that the Cross was
going to poke in a hole in their money bags, the crowd of craftsman
«were enraged and cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”»
(Acts 19,28).25 For two hours they continued the chant and, like many
a mob-for-hire, they were close to causing a riot even though «most of
them did not know why they had come together» (Acts 19,32).
24. MAYOR, Gods and Robots, cit., pp. 35–37. Evidence suggests deep links between
the goddesses Artemis, Astarte, and Ishtar. C.L. BRINKS, “Great Is Artemis of the Eph-
esians”: Acts 19:23-41 in Light of Goddess Worship in Ephesus,” in «The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly» 71/4 (2006), pp. 776–94 at 778–781.
25. The Artemis of Ephesus was an enormous statue, purportedly from heaven and
considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a locus of wealth such
that her image was minted on many coins, with the temple serving like a bank for pil-
grims. BRINKS, “Great Is Artemis of the Ephesians”, art.cit., pp. 782–785. Conversions from
the statue-cult therefore served to undermine the existing order of commerce, religion,
and politics. Pliny attested to the dangers Christianity posed to pagan religions, see quo-
tation in C.K. BARRETT, Acts of the Apostles: A Shorter Commentary, T&T Clark, London,
2002, p. 298. Émile Durkheim, summarizing Henri de Saint-Simon, argues that religion
may be indispensable in promoting a «spiritual communion […] common to all human-
ity», through «the dogma of universal brotherhood», whatever other truth-claims might
be made. Socialism and Saint Simon, ed. Alvin W. Gouldner, trans. Charlotte Sattler, Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul, London 1959, pp. 114, 116. Similar social reasons are offered in
Stephen T. ASMA, Why We Need Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 2018.
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26. See the observation of Edward GIBBON (often misattributed to Seneca): «The var-
ious modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by
the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate,
as equally useful». The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I, ed.
David Womersley, Penguin, London 1994 (1st ed. 1776), p. 56.
27. See Socrates’s summary of Meletus’s accusations: Apology 18c–19b; 24c; 26.
Manuela GIORDANO-ZECHARYA demonstrates that traditional ritual actions were more
important than belief for the Athenians: As Socrates Shows, the Athenians Did Not Be-
lieve in Gods, in «Numen» 52/3 (2005), pp. 325–355.
28. THEODORET OF CYRUS, Commentary on Daniel, trans. Robert C. Hill, Brill,
Leiden/Boston 2006, p. 71.
29. Whether the historical incident was Nabonidus crafting an image of the moon-
god for the state cult or an «arrogant attempt of a pagan king to impose the worship
of a statue of his own design», the chief message remains: Paul-Alain BEAULIEU, The
Babylonian Background of the Motif of the Fiery Furnace in Daniel 3, in «Journal of Bib-
lical Literature» 128/2 (Summer, 2009), pp. 273–290 at 277 and 286.
30. RUBIÉS, Theology, Ethnography, and the Historicization of Idolatry, art. cit., p. 589,
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referring to Jean GERSON’s doctrine in De erroribus circa artem magicam (1402) in Oeu-
vres completes, ed. Palemon Glorieux, Desclee, Paris 1969. See also, Pedro CIRUELO, Re-
provación de supersticiones y hechicerías [Treaty Reproving all Superstitions and
Witchcraft ], Alcalá 1530, 13r-v.
31. «Ultraintelligent Machines and Their Value», in Speculations Concerning the First
Ultraintelligent Machine (1964), at https://web.archive.org/web/20010527181244/
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Authors/Computing/Good-IJ/SCtFUM.html
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32. John SEARLE, Minds, Brains and Programs, «Behavioral and Brain Sciences» 3
(1980), pp. 417–457.
33. Gordon E. MOORE, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, in «Elec-
tronics» 38/8 (1965), pp. 114-117.
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perform both somatic cell and germline cell gene editing. Located in
human egg and sperm, edited germline cells would affect a person’s
entire body. Despite ethical controversies, this technology is presently
being implemented. In 2018, He Jiankui, a scientist from Shenzhen,
China, stunned the global community by announcing that his gene
editing had successfully manufactured the world’s first «designer ba-
bies». Jiankui’s university disowned his violation of «academic ethics»,
but there are indications that AI will be utilized to continue this trend.34
Objections from religious groups — especially the Catholic Church —
and other ethical bodies may slow the development of full A I -con-
structed humans, but rogue scientists will think of themselves as fur-
thering the process of evolution.
Currently AI is being utilized to analyze the genetic code, to predict
diseases, and to help robots perform surgery. Soon enough, govern-
ments and businesses may argue that an «objective» and «scientific»
standard and method for gene-editing will help reduce potential biases
and mistakes regarding gene — and trait-selection. After physician and
scientists establish a standard for «healthy genes», then AI can be un-
leased on the genome. It will be integrated with increasingly-efficient
in vitro fertilization, with artificial wombs that can gestate an embryo
to full-term, and with in-vitro gametogenesis (or I VG ), which repro-
grams human skin cells to become sperm or eggs. When those tech-
nologies are integrated, then AI and various machines can «play god»
with humans. AI will directly and autonomously manufacture man in
its own image.
As a result of bioengineering, people will be differentiated according
to origin. The first generations of A I experimentation will result in
many deformed and non-viable embryos; those born of A I will be
thrown away in vast quantities as is the case with current I VF attempts
at pregnancy. But eventually, if not stopped, AI will be able to construct
humans with capabilities and features far beyond those born of natural
generation: they will be larger, stronger, more intelligent, perhaps or-
34. Owen DYER, Researcher Who Edited Babies’ Genome Retreats from View as Criti-
cism Mounts, in «BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.)», 363 (November 30, 2018, k5113,
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5113.
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35. Such a vision was predicted by Lewis MUMFORD in The Myth of the Machine: The
Pentagon of Power, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York 1970, pp. 227–228, where
he synthesized the individual insights of various authors, including H.G. Wells, Aldous
Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, B.F. Skinner, and Buckminster Fuller. Mumford’s early
philosophical-historical study, The Story of Utopias, Boni and Liveright, New York 1922,
gave him deep insights into the technological enthusiasm that would enrapture the
world in his lifetime.
36. Karel CAPEK, R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, trans. Claudia Novack-Jones, Pen-
guin Classics, London-New York 1999.
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37. Jaron LANIER, You Are Not a Gadget, Penguin, London 2011, p. 24.
38. Ivi, p. 36.
39. Kevin Kelly predicts a lop-sided «human-robot symbiosis» in which humans
become the butlers of robot progress: «[S]uccess will go to those who best optimize
the process of working with bots and machines. […] Our human assignment will be to
keep making jobs for robots — and that is a task that will never be finished. So we will
always have at least that one “job”». KELLY, Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technolog-
ical Forces That Will Shape Our Future, Penguin, New York 2016, pp. 58–59.
40. «L’opération chirurgicale que l’on ne pouvait pas faire et que maintenant on
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peut faire n’est pas l’objet d’un choix: elle est. Nous tenons ici un aspect décisif de l’au-
tomatisme technique: c’est maintenant la technique qui opère le choix ipso facto, sans
rémission, sans discussion possible entre les moyens à utiliser. L’homme n’est absolu-
ment pas l’agent du choix. Il est un appareil enregistreur des effets, des résultats
obtenus par diverses techniques, et ce n’est pas un choix pour des motifs complexes et
de quelque façon humains; il décide seulement pour ce qui donne le maximum d’effi-
cience. Ce n’est plus un choix: n’importe quelle machine peut effectuer la même opéra-
tion». ELLUL, Le Système technicien, Le cherche midi, Paris 2012 (1rs ed. 1977), p. 245. My
translation.
41. Significantly, the European Union passed a General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) in 2016 which, according to Jacob Turner «arguably amount to a legal right to
explanation of certain decisions made by AI», seemingly to enhance human agency and
understanding with respect to AI. T URNER, Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence,
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland 2019, p. 328. See Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on
the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and
on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data
Protection Regulation) [2016], OJ L119/1 (GDPR). Article 22 of the GDPR stipulates that
individuals «have the right not to be subject to a decision solely based on automatic
processing», such as occurs with AI, «which significantly affects him or her». This reg-
ulation contains an enormous loophole, for the State may authorize such a decision
(Art. 22.2.b), which may allow a low-level bureaucrat or unsupervised programmer to
erode one’s agency by introducing such decisions into one’s daily life. Furthermore,
despite the good intentions, programmers and businessmen know that «It is often so
easier, faster, and cheaper to leave the decisions to the machine», says Stuart Russell,
one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence design, in discussing Article 22. RUSSELL,
Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control (Viking, 2019), p.
128.
42. For a discussion of AI as subject and agent, without presupposing consciousness
or sentience, see T URNER, Robot Rules, cit., pp. 16–22.
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43. LANIER, You Are Not a Gadget, cit., p. 70. J.G. Ballard, Crash, HarperCollins, New
York 1973, cit., p. 14.
44. Medieval Christians saw the Pygmalion myth as a warning against idolizing
lovely tech: MAYOR, Gods and Robots, cit., p. 108. See Reinier LEUSHUIS, Pygmalion’s Folly
and the Author’s Craft in Jean de Meun’s Roman de La Rose, «Neophilologus» 90/4 (Oc-
tober 1, 2006), pp. 521–533. Examining medieval illustrations of the same: Marian
BLEEKE, Versions of Pygmalion in the Illuminated Roman de la Rose (Oxford, Bodleian Li-
brary Ms. Douce 195): The Artist and the Work of Art, in «Art History» 33/1 (February
2010), pp. 28–53.
45. LINTS, Identity and Idolatry, cit., p. 37, note 18.
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46. Lewis MUMFORD, Technics and Civilization, Harcourt, Brace, and World, New York
1962, p. 45.
47. See incisive work by Nir EYAL with Ryan HOOKER, Hooked: How to Build Habit-
Forming Products, Portfolio/Penguin, New York 2014. Also, Adam ALTER, Irresistible:
The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, Penguin Books,
New York 2018.
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sumption, addiction, and re-upping new tech. Which will mean more
money in the bank.
Control. Many are rightly concerned about the power of communi-
cations technologies to help dictators regulate the flow and content of
speech and information, and kill larger number of political dissidents.
Such tendencies will coalesce in AI controls. As new Nebuchadnezzars,
powerful elites will keep the marionette strings in hand as they present
certain androids as the embodiments of the wisdom, or whim, of the
online collective. Making use of the human instinct to follow the mob,
social puppeteers will encourage the masses to give obeisance to these
manmade gods — with goal of controlling them through a robotic re-
ligion, in which the androids are portrayed as primary agents in the
world and common folk are given roles of mechanized slaves. The re-
sult, Mumford predicts with chilling logic, «the controllers who set up
this supermechanism will themselves serve as its final sacrificial vic-
tims; for when the planetary megamachine reaches its terminal point
of soulless perfection, the original human intelligence will have become
completely absorbed—and thus eliminated».48 What was once sought
in Buddhist nihilist philosophy through meditation may be forced by
elaborate technology.49 Mumford insightfully notes how Teilhard de
Chardin’s philosophy of man’s becoming one with the universe at the
«omega point» is precisely «the heavenly Nirvana of the “Now” gen-
eration: electronic salvation, disguised as Christian fulfillment», in
which the individual ego is merged with the world brain.50 Chardin’s
view of intelligence is, in Mumford’s view, «unconditional, absolute,
and therewith anti-organic», fully coherent with the tendency of elec-
tronics to «de-materialize» and «depersonalize» man.51
If this scenario comes about, people will hardly be alive, and will have
difficulty distinguishing between the real and the unreal. Keven Kelly
sees this as a bright future. Gesturing towards H.G. Well’s «world
brain» and Teilhard de Chardin’s «noosphere», Kelly predicts that «the
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52. KELLY, Inevitable, cit., pp. 292, 293. See, among other works, the essays in H.G.
WELLS, World Brain, Doubleday, Garden City/New York 1938, where he describes a liv-
ing organism that is the storehouse and producer of all knowledge. Also, CHARDIN’s
How I Believe in Christianity and Evolution, trans. René Hague, Harvest Books/Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, New York 1962, p. 96, and The Heart of Matter, trans. René Hague,
Harvest/Harcourt Brace & Co., New York 2002, p. 45.
53. MUMFORD, The Myth of the Machine, cit., p. 226.
54. Ivi, p. 228.
55. Perhaps this helps answer von Rad’s question as to why the prohibition to make
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images is never mentioned in the context of the idol parodies in the prophetic and wis-
dom literature: to make room for the possibility of man’s cooperation with God in gen-
erating new images of the divine naturally through procreation. See VON RAD, Wisdom
in Israel, cit., pp. 83–84.
56. BEALE insightfully notes that, in the fall, Adam becomes and lives in a distorted
image of creation: We Become What We Worship, cit., pp. 132–135.
57. According to the Talmud (Gemara), the three «cardinal sins» for Jews are mur-
der, sexual sins, and idolatry. See Pesachim 25a-b, citing Sanhedrin 74a in The Schotten-
stein Edition Talmud Bavli no. 9: Pesachim Volume 1 (Folios 2a-41b), ed. and trans. Moshe
Zev Einhorn et al., Artscroll, Brooklyn, NY 2000. Also, Ein Yaakov: The Ethical and In-
spirational Teachings of the Talmud, trans. Avraham Yaakov Finkel, Rowan and Little-
field, Lanham, MD 2004), pp. 157–158. Murder and unchastity denigrate man who is
made in the image of God; idolatry denigrates God, in whose image man is made. Con-
sequently, idolatry and unchastity are often linked in Scriptural texts, e.g., Nm 25,1–
3; Jgs 8,33; Ez 16,36; Hos 2,5–8, 9,10. Solomon’s idolatry, adopted because of his
non-Hebrew wives, exemplifies these themes: 1 Kgs 1,1-2.4. See BEALE, We Become What
We Worship, cit., pp. 235–240. Aside from errors in regarding Joseph as cuckolded by
God in the conception of Jesus, see Catherine E. WINIARSKI, Idolatry, and the Subject of
Monotheism, in «Religion & Literature» 38/3 (Autumn, 2006), pp. 41–63. Also, Raymond
C. ORTLUND Jr., God’s Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery, IVP Aca-
demic, Downers Grove, Ill. 2003.
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58. Neo-Gnosticism also seems to play a part here: Giacomo Samek LODOVICI, Tran-
shumanesimo, Immortalità, Felicità, in «Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics» 20/3 (2018),
pp. 517–538. Also, the collected articles in Hermeneutica 2012: Nuovi ateismi e antiche
idolatrie, ed. Piergiorgio Grassi, Morcelliana, Brescia 2012.
59. Mary Timothy PROKES, At the Interface: Theology and Virtual Reality, Finestra
Books, Tucson, AZ 2004, pp. 30, 32, 35. Against «classic» Docetism, see 1 Jn and 2 Jn;
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, Letter to the Smyrnaeans c. 13 and Trallians c. 9–10; and TERTUL-
LIAN, De carne Christi, esp. cc. 17–23 — which show the important role of the Blessed
Virgin Mary in giving Christ real flesh and blood.
60. Super I ad Cor. [reportatio Vulg.] c. 15, v. 19, l. 2, no. 924: Anima autem cum sit
pars corporis hominis, non est totus homo, et anima mea non est ego. For a discussion of
this doctrine, see Stephen PRIEST, Aquinas’s Claim “Anima Mea Non Est Ego”, in
«Heythrop Journal» 40 (1999), pp. 209–211. For a robust theological anthropology, see
PONTIFICIA ACCADEMIA BIBLICA, Che cosa è l’uomo?, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican
2019.
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61. ST I-II, q. 56, a. 4; q. 58; q. 66, a. 3. ST II-II, q. 123, a. 1; q. 141, aa. 4-5.
62. For an account of the often unknown effect big tech and its AI has even now,
see Craig DETWEILER, iGods: How Technology Shapes our Spiritual and Social Lives, Brazos
Press, Grand Rapids, MI 2013.
63. T URNER, Robot Rules, cit., pp. 357–362. Russell contends that a superintelligent
entity could predict and disable a kill switch; plus, once such entities exist, to turn them
off would destroy a lot of civilization at that point and likely end many lives dependent
on it. Human Compatible, p. 161. Ethical AI principles enunciated by the US Department
of Defense, though good in themselves, are limited: they focus on avoiding autonomous
AI killing-sprees, and do not consider long-term issues of human replacement and sub-
ordination: «DOD Adopts Ethical Principles for Artificial Intelligence», 24 Feb. 2020.
https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2091996/dod-adopts-
ethical-principles-for-artificial-intelligence/source/GovDelivery/
The principles enunciated in the 28 Feb 2020 PONTIFICAL ACADEMY FOR LIFE «Call for
Ethics», signed in Rome by Microsoft, IBM, FAO, and the Italian Government, is similarly
general but difficult to implement legally.
64. Russell quotes E.M. FORSTER’s 1909 science fiction story, The Machine Stops, in
which the futuristic main character laments: «We created the Machine to do our will,
but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of
the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation, it has paralyzed our bodies and
our wills». The solution to an all-encompassing AI, Russell says, is «cultural, not tech-
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nical», that is, «a cultural movement to reshape our ideals and preferences towards au-
tonomy, agency, and ability and away from self-indulgence and dependency». Human
Compatible, pp. 254–256.
65. Ari Mermelstein intriguingly argues that the final redaction of Daniel included
depictions of Jewish resistance to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol-worship as a way of reinforc-
ing resistance to the idolatry of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the Maccabean period: Con-
structing Fear and Pride in the Book of Daniel: The Profile of a Second Temple Emotional
Community, in «Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman
Period», 46/4-5 (2015), pp. 449–483. Analogously, the example applies to resistance a
technocratic universe of AI deities.
66. ST II-II, q. 81, a. 3, ad 3. Nevertheless, he insists that we can give the adoration
of latria even to an image of Christ and to the Cross, non propter ipsam imaginem, sed
propter rem cuius imago est, ST III, q. 25, a. 3, ad 2. See ivi., a. 4.
67. See AQUINAS, ST II-II, q. 94, a. 1, quoting AUGUSTINE, De civitate Dei, lib. 6, c. 5; lib.
7, c. 6; lib. 8, c. 14; lib. 18, c. 14 and De doctrina Christiana, lib. 2, c. 20, n. 30.
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