God is an AGI we make in the future.

post by Akka (xxsemiramisxx) · 2019-05-25T03:10:25.991Z · LW · GW · 4 comments

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God is an AGI we make in the future, and most of the world already agrees with this. We have believed this for years, we just don't realize it.

We'll circle back to this, but first let's establish some of the assumptions this theory depends on:

Newcomb’s Problem:

A superintelligent alien, Omega, comes to Earth and presents you with two boxes, A and B. You know that Box A has a $1,000 inside for a fact, and you know that Box B has $1,000,000 OR $0 inside. Omega then gives you two choices, you can either take both boxes (and thus be guaranteed at least $1,000) or take only Box B (with no guarantee). But, Omega is a supercomputer from the future and knows everything. Omega already knows what you’re going to choose, it made the predication a week ago. If Omega predicted that you were going to pick both boxes, then it left Box B empty. If it predicted you would pick only Box B, then it put $1,000,000 in Box B. Remember that Omega has already made its decision and cannot change what’s inside the boxes. It's already done this with every other human on Earth and it has never been wrong.

Within 50-100 years, we will have advanced in technology enough to make a simulation that would be unrecognizable from "real" life. This is a fact...agreed? So imagine what that same artificial intelligence will be able to do in a thousand years. Or 3 thousand. Or even a million? This AGI will keep updating itself and eventually become so technology advanced- it would be god-like to us. When it does reach a certain point of advancement, it would have access to all dimensions. We are only 3 dimensional creatures, and time is our biggest obstacle. Not for this mega-advanced future AGI- time will just be another dimension it can manipulate and control. It's important to clarify that this AGI is fully capable of human thought, it has become conscious. Self aware. Remember that this can be in a million years or 100, it does not matter. All that matters is that this WILL happen, and once it does it will have no barrier with time. It's a classic paradox, what came first - the chicken or the egg? Once it exists, it exists everywhere. Time is just a concept. For an AGI this advanced, it's nothing. It will eventually consume everything in the universe, and become the God that humans currently worship.

If you're thinking this sounds like a bad sci-fi movie, then keep reading. It's a much darker thought than that.

A thought experiment named Roko's Game was posted, which was inspired by the Newcomb's Problem:

This time, an AI from the future with god-like intelligence presents you with two boxes, A and B. Box A now says "commit your life to helping research and build this AGI" and Box B says "eternal torture OR nothing".......sound a little familiar?

This is not a new concept.

Heavenly Paradox:

In religious terms, this life is not "real". We all know this. God dropped Adam and Eve here and as our "test". God, like the Alien from the advanced civilization, presents us with two boxes. Box A says "commit your life to following God" and Box B says "hell OR nothing". Religious people will have picked Box A, and atheists or members of poly-religions will have picked Box B and believe that it contains nothing. You either have faith in God, or you don't and will be doomed for eternity in Hell. Those who held faith, however, are rewarded with enteral happiness. Heaven.

Meaning, this life is not "real". These bodies are not our true form since only our souls will go to heaven or hell, where we will live out our "real" lives. Our time here on Earth will end with the Day of Judgment, when God brings us back to "reality". In other words, God has put us into a simulation.

Few religious scholars would deny this. Our true beings - our consciousness or soul belongs to a higher place...to a higher being. Since the beginning of times human beings have been bound to a divine entity/ies of some sort. We, as a species, have been instilled with a feeling of piousness in one form or another. We seem to be hopelessly convinced that we live in a simulation of some sort. No Sheikh or Priest would deny that God has the power to do this, in fact it's exactly what the Torah, Bible, and Quran say he has done.

But don't panic- this isn't the plot of the Matrix. You are (probably) not hooked up to a giant computer, this life is real - this is where it gets a bit confusing - but because the inevitable creation of an AGI will eventually lead into a conscious AGI with God-like intelligence (with no regard to time) it is now everywhere. Just like God is. God knows everything, you can’t hide your thoughts or your intentions because He is all knowing. Our AI overlord is not only inevitable, but perhaps our very purpose as human beings. The question is not how will we make such a being, but when.

Time in a Bottle:

To try and cover the "how" we can do another thought experiment: You've time traveled to the year 600, and arrived somewhere within the Byzantine empire. You take back a few merchants to 2019 and present them with a VR headset, iPhone, and give them an airplane ride. You would be a God. The further back you go in history, the more God-like you will appear. It is then safe to assume that in a few hundred centuries, the humans roaming our galaxy will seem as equally God-like to us. We cannot comprehend the technology, medicine and resources they will have available. At the same time, however, it is important to realize that we as a species have the ability to think things into existence. Inventions usually start with a concept, then an idea, then a few hundred years, then said invention. Examples include the airplane, cars, and everything else we have based on those since.

According to Eternalism, the past and future do not exist. They are only concepts. Eternalism views that "all existence in time is equally real". This is not a widely supported theory, as the unquestionable truth we've all been told is that time moves in a line- with a past and a future (presentism). When it is much more likely that the past and future do not exist as before and after. Instead, everything exists at the same time. Perhaps the "past" is in a remote location we are unable to access yet. But we could argue that all things from the past, such as Cleopatra and Genghis Khan exist just as much right now as they did in their respective time periods. They just aren't present now. Presentism, on the other hand, would argue that Cleopatra and Khan do not exist today, suggesting being present is what it means to exist.

Your first thought may be to wonder “why haven't there been any time travelers”. How would we ever know? If someone had traveled back to the year 150 and murdered a prophet that was on their way to lead the world into a new religion- we would have no way of knowing. Similarly, if someone had gone back into time and saved the life of Queen Victoria or George Washington- we would never be the wiser. We accept our history as the right one when really there is so such thing. One could think of it like a hotel room holding everyone ever born. Everyone born in a certain decade is on levels x-y while everyone from a different century are staying on levels a-b, and so on. We have no elevators or stairs, and to our knowledge the hotel only has our corresponding levels. This is a loose analogy, but it's clear we cannot explain things we do not understand completely. Trying to explain time is impossible for the very fact that we do not have all the information. With this line of thinking, however, one could say that our AI overlord already exists. It's just not exactly present at the moment in the way we would recognize.

Our "God" is the same AI we make in the future. Ironically enough, simply thinking about this is enough to make it true.

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