By Stefan Höchsmann
Overcoming Suffering Through AI
The last 60 years have seen tremendous social changes. They are particularly significant in the field of religion. The ancient faith that shaped the society of our ancestors and the modern faith that is spreading in our time have something in common: they recognize suffering on earth and promise salvation. But when it comes to suffering there is also a fundamental difference between the Gospel and the faith of our time. One can argue whether today’s mindset should be called faith or not. I dare to do so because modern atheists do have their objects and entities in which they put their trust.
Usually they are: Himself, humanity, science, and technology.
In the first part of this essay, I present this new belief. My focus is on the belief in artificial intelligence. In Silicon Valley there was even a church of AI until 2021 called The Way of The Future – The First Church of Artificial Intelligence. In this church, former Google executive Anthony Levandowski instructed his congregation in the worship of servers, robots and algorithms. The global AI community believes that humankind can overcome or at least reduce suffering on earth through
artificial intelligence. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the majority of people put their faith in the architects of this brave new world and believe they have a good plan that also takes into account their personal wellbeing.
In the second part of this essay, we look at the ancient faith and focus on Luke 24:45-46. In these two significant verses God reveals His secret about suffering.
Yuval Noah Harari
One of the most effective evangelists of the modern faith is Yuval Noah Harari. He has been called “world star among historians” and “the most successful nonfiction author of the presence.” As a philosopher he has written three world bestsellers: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – about the past, Homo Deus – about the future, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – about the present. His fan club is not made up of fishermen or simple-minded people, his readers are the smartest among the smart. They are politicians like Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, and Angela Merkel; and they are entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. In his nonfiction books, he deals with the existential questions of life: Who is man? Where does he come from? How does he find happiness? Where is he going to?
A Role Model
Interestingly, Harari is asking similar questions than Christianity, and he teaches virtues that are held in high regard among Christians, such as scholarship, honesty, and perseverance. His favorite virtue seems to be humility, to the praxis of which he repeatedly urges his readers. He wishes that everyone would take science and its humility as an example. Because scientists admit knowing little, he argues, they can always motivate themselves afresh and set out for new discoveries. And new discoveries are what mankind needs, believes Harari. For him, humility also means the denial of the old “myths” that
he believes have long since been disproved. By this he means the scriptures of the monotheistic religions in general and the biblical “narrative” of creation, sin, salvation and judgement in particular.
As a polymath, Harari has gotten a good dose of what the Bible calls human or earthly wisdom. He has analyzed the big issues of our time as thoroughly as he has dynamically, and more intensely than most. He does not possess memorized special knowledge, but has the ability to link different fields of knowledge, as well as to break complicated issues down into simple words. This suggests to his readers: He is smarter than us, in him we trust.
Like a modern monk Harari submits himself to ambitious standards of behavior and rigid self discipline. Instead of telling cheap lies, he prefers to postulate uncomfortable truths. In his interpretation of human history, he relies on what is taught on campuses; in his vision of mankind’s future, he does not go beyond what is discussed in scientific circles. And yet he chats about his great subject, the Homo sapiens, in an unabashedly confrontational and stirringly innovative way. He comments on the wide range of peripheral issues that he tackles with dialectic correctness and beyond his personal preference. His readers marvel at this: He is a really honest one, in him we believe.
Harari doesn’t care what pleases his listeners. Challenges run like a thread through his books. He is an outspoken maverick, but one who is followed by the mainstream. His frequently cited humility does not stop him from transposing his intellectual superiority into absolute beliefs: He calls monotheism brainwashing, and Jesus Christ Fake News1, neither resurrected nor Son of God. Some scholars may have a similarly broad knowledge as he, others may be able to associate as ingeniously as Yuval, but which speaker of the intelligentsia has the courage to express his thoughts as blatantly
as Harari? The techno-cultural developments now pouring onto the globe from the U.S. West Coast herald a new age, equivalent to what we called science fiction a few decades ago. What we are witnessing today are only the beginnings, as those who have studied the books of futurologists can confirm. Harari has studied them. If you ask the digital architects from Silicon Valley about the prospects of Homo sapiens, you usually get well-considered answers, but they don’t quite come out with the message of where we are heading towards. If you read Harari, on the other hand, you’ll be hit over the head with charm and wit, and you’ll be told the plain truth. For him, the future of humanity is all about risks and opportunities. In short, his philosophy can be described as follows: The homo goes technology and abolishes the sapiens … The homo becomes god and begins to control the cosmos… The Homo Deus abolishes suffering and founds paradise on earth. The Swiss news portal Watson comments on his book Homo Deus as follows:
On the way to a god-like being that overcomes death and maximizes happiness, Homo
sapiens thus virtually abolishes itself. “In their pursuit of health, happiness, and power,
humans will very gradually change first one of their characteristics, then another, and
another, until finally they are no longer human,” Harari notes.2
Harari’s followers like his offensive style: He has force, we will empower him.
A New Savior from Jerusalem?
The great teacher of our time teaches in the city of the greatest teacher of all times: 2,000 years ago Jesus brought about our redemption on Golgotha, today Professor Harari is proclaiming his plan of salvation for mankind at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Like a modern chatbot, he presents his opinion on up-to-date subjects through a mixture of pro and con arguments. On one topic, however, he doesn’t stick to this scheme: when he mentions monotheistic religions, he has nothing but contempt for them. They are, as he knows, a major cause of suffering on this planet. His aversion to
the Jewish religion of his forefathers and biblical Christianity is particularly intense, of which the latter might have to do with his homosexuality.
Life Without Suffering
Harari has come out as gay, but not yet as Buddhist. But he shows enthusiasm for the teachings of Buddha and the atheistic nature religion named after him. Harari’s vision is as great as that of Gautama. He is concerned with nothing less than the salvation of humanity from suffering. Like Buddhism, Harari believes: suffering is real…suffering has a cause suffering can be overcome…suffering is overcome through right practice. For Buddhists, salvation from suffering has
to do with overcoming desire. According to Harari self-knowledge and self-discipline are the first steps on the path to overcome desire and suffering. At the end of his latest book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, he details how he achieved personal enlightenment and psychological revolution through a meditation course while a student at Oxford. Since then, he meditates two hours a day and takes two months off for retreats every year.
Homo Deus
If we look at the history of the last few decades, we see how right the cynic Harari is in many of his statements. Indeed, the advancement of Homo sapiens to became Homo Deus can be observed. Man has created a fantastic wonder world on this planet and has successfully conquered the domains of God. Once it was the sovereign God only who stood above time and space, who had his eyes and his ears simultaneously in all places and all ages, who knew the most secret plans and intentions of every human’s heart, and who directed the hearts of kings like streams of water. But then came the Enlightenment and declared this God a myth and his book a fable. Homo sapiens said: I believe only what science can prove. But that was not the end. Then science discovered mysterious phenomena and no longer understood the cosmos. Afterwards it took refuge in the symbiosis of humans and machines to bring the fire of the gods to the human race and thereby the divine attributes. Then Homo Deus evolved. Through technology our eyes and ears can now be everywhere at once, through algorithms our super administrators now have an inkling of our most secret plans and intentions and
can record the past and even predict the future. With technology they can manipulate the decisions of the kings of the earth, but also the doings of the mainstream and the future of our race and society. Most people don’t understand what is happening above them in the cloud, but they trust the one up there, Homo Deus and his great works, and marvel at his wisdom and morality. Somehow, we can say: They do have faith.
The Advance of AI
Thanks to technology the achievements of the last 60 years have certainly simplified our lives and reduced suffering on earth. However, most of our contemporaries have not yet fully realized that it also brings about undesirable social changes when mankind rises to the status of god through technology. They are too busy with the flood of trivia that Silicon Valley supplies them with every day. When ChatGPT was introduced at the end of 2022, many were surprised and amazed at what
these bots could do and this completely free of charge. Now even the laziest student can write essays and texts at a high linguistic level after typing in a few keywords. Artists no longer need to suffer if they encounter days without inspiration, because with the bots, impressive works of art can be created effortlessly. As of now, the AI can also paint, compose and write poetry, and do so quite well. On March 24, 2023, Time magazine praised, “The AI can now even tell jokes,” but at the same time cautioned that this would not be so funny.3 Why these chattering robots have been causing such a global stir since late 2022 is the speed with which they are spreading: It took Netflix 3.5 years to generate a million users, Twitter 2 years, Facebook 10 months, Spotify 5 months, and Instagram 2.5 months. ChatGPT did it in five days. Harari also has a lot to say about AI, which is one of his main topics. We’ll get back to him soon, but for now we’ll take a brief detour into the brave new world of chatbots. In terms of their cultural significance, they have been compared to Gutenberg’s printing press. In fact, they mark a social watershed and thus the gateway through which artificial intelligence
is flowing from Silicon Valley into the lives of all of us.
ChatGPT
AI is supposed to make life on earth more pleasant and minimize crime, exploitation, accidents and diseases. That is undoubtedly a noble goal. Nonetheless, AI also scares many. The loudest outcry against its uncontrolled spread is coming from an unexpected direction. AI experts, of all people, are now warning against too naïve further development. On March 22, 2023, over 1000 AI experts signed an open letter to governments, industry and humanity, calling for an AI development pause of at least six months. Interestingly, one of the signatories is Elon Musk. Considering his support for this project and his famous quote “With artificial intelligence, we summon the demon,” Musk seems to be a staunch opponent of AI. However, this is not the case. He is one of the great pioneers and driving forces of AI and co-founder of OpenAI, the company that developed the famous ChatGPT bot in San Francisco. About his ex-company’s product, Tesla’s CEO tweeted, “ChatGPT is scary good, we are now not far from dangerously strong AI.”4 Experts understand this to mean: The Singularity is near – or put in simpler terms: The total domination of machines is coming soon.
What does it mean when the architects of our brave new digital world warn of the consequences of AI? At first glance, this makes them sympathetic and trustworthy. But perhaps Musk is also using this initiative as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in the technology race between AI and his company Neuralink, which wants to transform Homo sapiens into Homo Digitalis through electronic brain implants to arm him against the expected AI invasion through the brain-computer interface.
Future of Life Institute
This open letter was published by the Future of Life Institute. This is a think tank of the AI elite. It was founded in 2014 by Max Tegmark and has been able to generate a lot of publicity thanks to generous donations from Elon Musk. In his best-selling book Life 3.0, Tegmark describes how he and many of the most renowned scientists envision the future of life. He calls it “perhaps the most important discussion of our time.” Many responsible parents I guess would agree. In the book, Tegmark distinguishes between biological, cultural and technological life: According to this, biological life (1.0) lasted billions of years, when organisms were still completely at the mercy of the forces of evolution and could not modify their “hardware” or “software.” Then Homo sapiens appeared and with them cultural life (2.0), during which humans learned to upgrade their “software” through cooperation and education, but they could not yet modify their bodies and thus their “hardware”. Tegmark sees humanity today on the threshold of technological life (3.0) and thus the age when both the “software” and the “hardware” of life become modifiable. If processors are getting bigger and machines are generally getting smarter than humans, why shouldn’t they also develop what we call consciousness, Tegmark wonders. After all, he believes, sapiens do not have a monopoly on life or consciousness. With his vision of the future, he is very close to Harari, who knows that deep inside humans there is no soul or personality or self, but that they are defined merely by biochemical processes. Since this transition process to “Life 3.0”, as all scientists confirm, is associated with great risks, Tegmark’s institute advocates that this transition should not be led by the blind powers of AI, but by the wise and competent forward planning of sapiens.
Because the authors of this open letter are great AI proponents, one should question their initiative. The Südkurier writes about the institute:
According to research by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, it is a think tank around which adherents of so-called “longtermism” gather. The term refers to a philosophical-esoteric current that has many followers among the tech elite. “It claims that scenarios for the extremely distant future, such as a takeover by machines or mankind fleeing into space, are more important than obvious human problems, such as climate change,” writes the SZ. In these circles, there is a real obsession with artificial intelligence. AI must be further developed, but brought under the control of humans, so that it can then be used for futuristic projects.5
AI Development Pause
Ever-rapid entrepreneurs like Musk started the hasty development of AI, and now they’re putting on the brakes for a change. In other words, the further development of AI and the consequences of it are seen as so serious and dangerous that the money-and-tech-elite doesn’t want to make this fateful decision entirely without the rest of the world. They have always been very best friends with the free market, but now they are bringing international governments on board and asking for their blessing so that no one could complain later. When the development pause comes, which currently
doesn’t look like it will, the aim is to build and enforce global monitoring systems within six months and thus ensure that the risks of AI become obvious even for the laymen. A noble and equally naïve goal, considering that, according to the Future of Life Institute, not even the developers themselves have a good grasp of what exactly is being created. After six months of brainstorming, they would probably continue work on the Tower of artificial intelligence, which, like its predecessor at Babel, would rise high above the clouds into the heavens so that all the world could give thanks and praise
to the great works of Homo Deus and his wisdom and omnipotence.
God Games
Believers who oppose mankind elevating itself to godhood might welcome the call for a pause in AI development. But they should keep in mind: The authors and signatories of this open letter are not interested in putting a stop to humanity’s god games. On the contrary, they believe in a future flourishing through AI and sympathize with the transition from handheld digital devices to the autopilots of AI. Like their colleagues who advocate unbridled AI, they are proponents of transhumanism and genetic engineering and see these as great tools to minimize suffering on earth. While the “speeding up camp” takes into account the risk of AI becoming uncontrollable by humans, the “slowing down camp” believes that humans should have the upper hand over AI for as long as possible. This sounds very reasonable, but it is nothing other than the age-old pride of mankind, which is reminiscent of Babel: Mankind imagines that it can master the daring transition to a future powered by AI, relying utterly on its superior wisdom and blameless morality.
Digital Utopians
There are, of course, big names in the industry who are not keen on a pause in AI development. Neither Google nor Microsoft could bring themselves to comment on ChatGPT when asked for their opinion by the computer newspaper Wired at the end of March 2023.6 The two corporations are in fierce competition with each other and are unlikely to have much interest in a pause in development, especially since Microsoft has invested ten billion in ChatGPT and wants to integrate the chatting robot into its Bing search engine, something Google is not willing to accept without a fight. On April
4, 2023, Reuters news agency interviewed former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates: “Calls to pause AI won’t solve challenges”7, he says. According to Tegmark, Google founder Larry Page is one of the digital utopians for whom the development of AI and the digitization of the cosmos cannot go fast enough. In his book, Tegmark recounts a party conversation with Page:
Larry gave a passionate defense of the position I like to think of as digital utopianism: that digital life is the natural and desirable next step in the cosmic evolution and that if we let digital minds be free rather than try to stop or enslave them, the outcome is almost certain to be good.8
Brave New World
Wikipedia lists one most prominent signatory of the open letter before Elon Musk. The Frankfurter Rundschau calls him “perhaps the most influential intellectual of our time” – it is Yuval Noah Harari. He, too, is afraid of unbridled AI: According to Fortune Magazine he warns: “AI is ‘seizing the master key of civilization’ and we ‘cannot afford to lose.’”9 As Harari suggests, we are in danger of soon being ruled by a surveillance state of artificial autopilots that could be worse than Orwell’s 1984. In contrast, he finds surprisingly positive words about his favorite author Aldous Huxley and his bestseller Brave New World, for whose 90th anniversary edition Harari wrote the introduction. Whether this novel should be classified in the dystopia genre as it once was, the polymath is not so sure. “Today, people tend to interpret Huxley’s work as utopian,”10 he says. Harari admires Huxley, who was influenced by Buddhism, because 90 years ago he foresaw the brave new consumption world of the present with brilliant foresight. He is enthusiastic about Huxley’s world state, which gets
along entirely without secret police, totalitarianism and brutality, and enables its citizens to live a life of bliss and enjoyment through sex, drugs & rock n roll, so that even the slaves of the lowest caste are grateful and find pleasure and paradise in their drudgery.10
Intelligentsia
Harari thinks, the advance of AI cannot be stopped. For him, AI is neither good nor bad, it just depends on who controls it. Thus, in addition to many concerns about it, Harari also has great fascination for AI because he sees its potential to reduce or overcome suffering on earth. Harari would like to see an AI that educates and supervises humans with machine precision to reasonable behavior, so that they do not consume more resources than is environmentally sustainable and do
not desire more luxuries than is socially acceptable. Also, through AI, society could be obliged to ensure that everyone behaves in a compliant manner in the areas of gender identity, sexual orientation, and racial heritage. Of course, this would require the necessary political structures and law enforcers. Harari’s role model Huxley understood very early on that a society could only be led to justice if it were given a new structure. He wrote:
About 99.5 per cent of the entire population of the planet are as stupid and philistine as the great masses of the English . . . The important thing, it seems to me, is not to attack the 99.5 per cent – except for exercise – but to try to see that the 0.5 per cent survives, keeps its quality up to the highest possible level and, if possible, dominates the rest.11
Harari is excellently networked with such an intelligentsia. He is particularly close to the mega powerful founders of IT corporations. Regardless of whether they are a little to the left or right on the traditional political scale – or, like Harari, above it – they are on his ideological wavelength: they listen to Far Eastern gurus, meditate regularly, want to free the world from suffering, strive for a technical utopia, and see us humans as “hackable animals”. They wouldn’t say it like that, but their friend Harari says it. He invented this cute nickname for us which means, sapiens are animals whose processors can be hacked. The Brave New World system excelled at this discipline, selling its citizens hollow trivialities and primitive satisfactions as real life in order to lure them into the hamster wheel of the state machinery. This strategy is not unknown in the Internet age, and it is likely to be perfected once AI is in the regiment. Not that Harari praises the hacking of human processors, he condemns it. But he also understands the “positive” manipulation potential of AI. Since AI is inevitably coming our way, and simultaneously increased manipulation, we don’t need to fight against manipulation but should rather use it for the right cause. Already, Harari’s philanthropic friends are working with selfless zeal to create a suffering-reduced habitat for these hackable animals, where they can devote themselves entirely to leisure, art, and pleasure, while the machines of loving grace do their work.
Immortality Chip
In terms of overcoming suffering, our society has achieved impressive things since World War II. By 2015, the traditional causes of suffering had largely been overcome and the herd of Homo sapiens could proudly announce: We have obliterated world hunger, eliminated epidemics and decimated war deaths. For some years now, this trend has been reversed, but many continue to hold unswervingly to the belief that total victory over suffering can be achieved. So, the next objective is tackling death. Perhaps this ultimate cause of suffering can be approached with the “immortality chip”. For Harari this is a big topic. In his book Homo Deus, he refers to the “right to life” proclaimed by the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. He writes:
Since death clearly violates this right, it is a crime against humanity, and therefore we should wage total war against it.12
According to the Bible, death is not a crime against humanity, but man is a criminal and deserves death, which is called the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26). It is a clever chess move that Harari applies to death the “right to life” that Christians cite as an argument against abortion, but he sets this move on the devil’s chessboard. The criminal that the Jew Harari implies is the God of Israel, who – yes, he is, as the great sovereign is responsible for death.
The Ancient Faith
Overcoming Death
Let us now turn to the ancient faith to see what the Bible has to say about suffering. That people condemn the holy God and make him a criminal is no novelty in human history. After the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem conspired against Jesus, the only guiltless one on earth was made the greatest criminal. Those in charge thought that by sacrificing Christ they could spare the people suffering and perishing. After the most shameful trial in history, they then crucified the Savior and thus the very One who had come to free from the power of sin, suffering, death and the devil.
Harari and his friends do not believe in the God who became a man and was born in a stable and slaughtered on a cross like an animal. They believe in the animal Homo sapiens, which miraculously formed through time and chance and became a god in a fantastic struggle for survival, and which believes that it can evolve man into a techno-biological hybrid that possesses sacred and moral eminence like the face of its creator elite. In the laboratories of Homo sapiens, the experiment of Dr. Frankenstein is no longer regarded as a horror, but as “Intelligent Design” – at least this is how Harari benevolently describes the human endeavor to create Homo Technicus. Today, it is no longer the Man-God Jesus Christ and his revelation that is decisive; these days it is all about the god-men and their science. Because they do not believe what Jesus accomplished, they think that Homo Deus must now accomplish it himself, and so in their blindness they fight against death as if they could overcome it. In their pathetic pride and with their corrupted wisdom, they have no qualms about
dragging the whole of humanity into this perverse and fateful experiment, the outcome of which is already decided by God.
Triumph Through Suffering
Both the fast and the slow camp of the tech elite agree that the transcendence of life to the autopilot system of AI is risky – but “no risk, no fun.” What causes this madness, the Bible describes with one word: sin! When the snake said to the first humans “You will be like God”, thereby the arrogance of Satan was transferred to mankind, and also his fate. Sin has blinded people to God’s offer of salvation and so they try to generate salvation from their own substance of sin. And since this did not work well for them during the time of individualism, they are now trying collectivism. They think, if all humans connect, they will finally succeed, but they cannot overcome suffering, because it is the consequence of sin. The Bible teaches: Suffering can only be overcome by suffering, but not by expiating suffering, for example by sinful people, but by the unjust suffering of the holy sacrificial lamb chosen by God, Jesus Christ.
Luke, in his drama of the salvation of mankind, waited until the last chapter before revealing God’s secret of man’s salvation from death and suffering. Even on the day Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples did not understand the essentials. Three times in the last 24th chapter it is said that the Christ had to suffer before his triumph. In verse 7, the angels reminded the women at the tomb of Jesus’ words in Galilee ” that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise”. In verse 26, Jesus explains to the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then in verses 45-46 Jesus reveals the mystery to the gathered disciples, “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead…,”
What Harari cannot see with his earthly wisdom, Jesus entrusted to his disciples and to us believers: there is no overcoming suffering except through the suffering of God!
The holy Son of God was to triumph, but before his triumph he had to suffer according to the divine plan. He was the only one worthy to bear man’s guilt and atone for it. With the message of triumph through suffering, Jesus surprised his friends and enemies alike. His disciples wanted to save his human body from suffering in order to preserve it; his adversaries wanted to see him suffer in order to corrupt him – but Jesus wanted the suffering of the cross for the sake of the joy set before him, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
After Jesus raised Lazarus, the high council of the Jews met to consult. Thereby God led the high priest Caiaphas ad absurdum. He was the mastermind behind the darkest conspiracy in the history of the world. In front of the high council he said about Jesus: “Better one man die for the people than all perish” (Jo. 11,50). He wanted to see one person suffer so that others would be spared suffering. Caiaphas spoke these words with evil intent against God – but it was God who made him speak these words, showing how good he meant it with the people. John explains this in the next verse (Jo. 11,51): ” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation.” God also wanted to see the one man suffer so that all who believe would be granted eternal life.
The revelation that Jesus’ triumph had to be accomplished through suffering is not isolated in verses 45-46, but integrated into the context of the past and future: in verse 44, Jesus reminds us that the message of triumph through suffering had already been announced in the Old Testament Scriptures (e.g., in Isaiah 53). In verses 47-48, Jesus prophesies that the disciples would proclaim the Gospel and its triumph through suffering. Later, we read how the message “The Christ had to suffer and rise again” runs like a refrain through Acts (Acts 3:18; 17:3; 26:23).
Triumph in Suffering
Jesus achieved his triumph over sin, death and the devil through suffering; he promised his followers triumph in suffering. Believers do not frantically try to avoid suffering on earth. They are realistic and understand that humanity cannot escape suffering on this fallen planet. Thus, they face suffering with their heads held high because they patiently trust Jesus to gather them to himself and carry them to the better heavenly home. Because believers know triumph in suffering, they need not worry about the advent of an anti-Christian AI system. Nor do they need to rebel against it, because God’s Word has predicted an extremely corrupt system for the Last Days. Believers know that God controls world history and will intervene at the right time and complete their lives in triumph for Christ.
When Peter and John departed from the high council full of joy because they had been worthy to suffer shame for His name’s sake (Acts 5:41), they experienced the triumph in suffering that Jesus promised them in Matthew 5:10-11. Four times in the Gospels (Mt 10:38, Mk 8:34, Lk 9:23, Lk 14:27) Jesus defines discipleship as taking up the cross and following the one crucified, which represents the triumph of faith in the face of persecution and death. Paul showed this mindset when he wrote, “I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Ph. 3:10-11). Many other scriptural passages testify to the triumph in suffering that God has promised to
His faithful.
Conclusion
The new faith is based on an old story that has proven to be a deception over and over again. It is the story of paradise on earth: The capitalists promised paradise on earth – what followed was a factory hell; the communists promised paradise on earth – it became a slave hell; the Nazis promised paradise on earth – the Germans discovered a war hell; the hippies promised paradise on earth – many experienced a drug hell. But in the Internet age, people are suddenly much smarter. Failures similar to those in the past can no longer happen today, because everyone is now networked with the great swarm of users; now everyone can copy the knowledge, works and wisdom of others, now nothing seems to be able to stop paradise on earth, many believe. Perhaps it is their last big throw, to which they just lunge. In their desperation, people have devoted themselves to those machines that their ideological masterminds called cold, cruel and inhuman. With the help of technologies unyielding consistence they want to force paradise on earth – who knows, it might lead to science
fiction hell.
Because of all this, our Lord humbled himself and yielded his human body to the cross, so that all who believe in him may not perish but have eternal life. When I consider how shamefully and obviously the powers of darkness are operating in our time, I wonder what I can do in response. And there is one thing I can do, and want to do: It is to proclaim Christs victory over death. This is our calling. The more the machines limit us, the more cheerfully we want to proclaim this message, through the power of the Spirit.
The Bible teaches regarding the end times that God has shortened the time so that the elect would not be deceived, if that were possible (Mk 13,20,22). This verse fits well to our time. It implies that after this shortening of time comes the grand finale: salvation and judgment, heaven and hell, the end of suffering on earth and the beginning of suffering beyond comprehension. We do not know the day nor the hour of his coming. But just because Harari and his friends at the Future of Life Institute believe that history is on the brink of a new age and a new humanity right now, that doesn’t mean
that Jesus’ coming can’t happen parallel to it. So, as we have learned, we should be alert and ready for his coming at all times, and we should expect it soon. It would not be the first time that God writes his history of salvation parallel to the fake “promises of salvation” of the wise men of this world and thereby leads them as absurdum.
Links
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwuEXeDf4gE
2 https://www.watson.ch/wirtschaft/gesellschaft%20&%20politik/665546951-homo-deus-oder
wenn-wir-menschen-goetter-werden
3 https://time.com/6132544/artificial-intelligence-humor/
4 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1599128577068650498?lang=de
5 https://www.suedkurier.de/ueberregional/rundblick/chat-gpt-ki-wettrennen-ausser-kontrolle
experten-fordern-entwicklungsstopp;art1373253,11520039
6 https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-pause-ai-experiments-open-letter/
7 https://www-reuters-com.translate.goog/technology/bill-gates-says-calls-pause-ai-wont-solve
challenges-2023-04-04/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
8 Tegmark, Max (2017-08-28T23:58:59). Life 3.0 . Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle-Version.
9 https://fortune.com/2023/03/24/yuval-harari-artificial-intelligence-openai-ai-chatbots-gpt-4
chatpt-warning/
10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pl_OY5zG3w
& https://www.52-insights.com/news/yuval-noah-harari-on-his-favourite-book-brave-new-world/
11 https://mouthhouse.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/a-brave-new-world/
12 Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus (German Edition) (S.36). C.H.Beck. Kindle-Version.