The Third Prophet
I haven’t thought a lot about AI since I stopped teaching last semester. I realize that Chat GPT may provide a better means of searching the internet for information, but even though I have it downloaded, I usually still just use Google search. Then, over the past week I have read about Sam Altman getting booted from Open AI. Over the past fifty years I have read a lot of stories of CEOs getting the boot, but rarely has there been as much mystery and intrigue around a CEO firing as we have seen with Sam Altman. Its starting to make me wonder whether there’s something going on with CEOs named Sam, given that the last CEO ouster of note occurred this past summer when Sam Bankman-Fried hit the skids at FTX and the subsequent blowup of the cryptocurrency markets. Then it dawned on me, two thousand thirty three years ago, I bet Jesus was a pretty common name around Bethlehem and Palestine in general, and then came THE Jesus, who was anointed the Christ child. Maybe Sam is today’s version of Jesus.
In the history of human development, there have been many technological innovations that have altered the course of mankind. We are said to be in the end of the Third Industrial Revolution, the Information Age, as it is called. We are said to be in the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is explained differently by different experts, but is a lot to do with cyber technology and the blurring of the physical, digital and biological realms through the early-stage implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some futurists are already predicting the Fifth Industrial Revolution, which is predicted to involve the complete integration of AI into the human and ecological experience. It’s hard enough to anticipate what is likely to happen in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, so I will leave the Fifth for a later date.
I suppose some will suggest that humans will engage with this new AI environment just like they did with the digital world, the age of steam and mechanization in general. I am less sure of that than others. The key element that distinguishes man from the other beasts of the earth is his cognitive ability. That active cerebellum has brought about an imagination and an ability to ponder the past and future in ways that other animals cannot. It is that cognitive ability that I believe gives rise to what we think of as our soul. It is the part of our being that cares about others rather than just ourselves and cares about the future and even future generations. It is what causes us to ponder where we came from, why we are here and where we go to when our physical lives come to an end. I think it is fair to suggest that this cognitive capability and the creation of our souls is what has caused humans to develop the unique formation of religion. Religion is our way of grappling with the unknowable and bringing peace to our souls over the questions we are unable to otherwise answer. It is hardly a modern phenomenon, since religion in one form or another, mono-theistic or poly-theistic, has been around as long as man has been able to record his thoughts for future generations to contemplate. The Information Age moved us from the totally physical realm that was impacted by the first two Industrial Revolutions, but it was all oriented towards information gathering, which is a quasi-cognitive function, but does not go deep into the cognitive realm since it creates a repository of information (perhaps some knowledge, but mostly raw information) which we then tap for one reason or another. But religion is all about soul and that means that we are now allowing the Industrial Revolution to get into our essence as human beings.
I am not enough of a student of ancient history to know what prompted a segment of the Jewish population of Palestine to become receptive to the teachings of a thirty-year-old Messiah called Jesus Christ or for the people in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea near Mecca and Medina to respond to the teachings of Muhammad when he was a forty-year-old Messiah. For the Disciples of Christ to pen the New Testament or Muhammad and his disciples to write the Quran, there must have been a significant shift in thinking about man’s place in the world. Well, its been 1,500 years since then, but now the advent of Artificial Intelligence seems to be bringing about a similar deep thinking about man’s place on earth. If as Descartes said, I think therefore I am, what would he say about mankind giving up large swaths of his thinking process to a machine? It is that stark reality that we face now and that is a cognitively existential crisis for us. As with all human crises, we need leaders to get us through these sorts of times and perhaps Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad are less relevant to these set of issues than they were to the issues of their times. Enter Sam.
Is it a coincidence that the two biggest changes to life as we know it that are on our horizon are the move towards cryptocurrency and the move towards AI, and that they have both been led by a Sam? Sam Bankman-Fried may have proven to be a false prophet, but Sam Altman appears to be the real thing. Think about the similarities we have witnessed this past week with the lives of Sam and Jesus. There are many like the vestigial tribes of Judaism that cling to life before and without AI for their salvation while the bulk of the world is deciding how best to embrace it. Christianity spread very rapidly for a reason and that was that there must have been a need in humankind that it fulfilled. AI has spread at lightning speed in just the past year and clearly it is a reflection of our overgrown population and global complexity. Man needed Christianity and then Islam when it did based on the changes in his world and man seems now to need AI for the changes in his more modern and complex world. The leaders of Christianity and Islam were 33 and 40 respectively and yet the disciples of each were numerous. Sam Altman is 38 and he is being heralded as the irreplaceable leader of the AI movement. Christianity and Islam both had a combination of a practical and commercial side and a spiritual and behavioral side. OpenAI, the company founded and led by Sam Altman has both a practical and commercial side as well as a righteous standards-driven side that can be likened to the conscience of AI. The struggles between the two sides always manages to come to a head.
In one weekend, Jesus was crucified, died and resurrected. Sam Altman was publicly fired on a Friday, was rejected by his board (the Pontius Pilatus of AI) only to have his 700 disciples (co-workers) rise up and resurrect him on Sunday to sit at the right hand of God, his Father (Microsoft). We now know for certain who our next spiritual leader of the world is and his name is Sam. He is likely not the last Messiah of this stage of human development, but I suspect that his world and worldview will spread out among the masses and especially all those who have focused their skills on computer programming, who will pay reverence to his wisdom and leadership. His teachings will be formulated into our next holy book (digitized, visualized and probably filled with guiding lights for us, to be sure). I don’t want to carry this analogy to the extreme, but you get my point. In 33 A.D., I doubt anyone thought Jesus would influence the world as he has (same for Muhammad 600 years later), so it is not so outrageous to think that Sam Altman may be the third prophet for the next stage of human existence.