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Ask HN: Could AI Eventually Build God?

2 points by olirex99 ↗ HN
If a less intelligent species, like humans, is able to create a more intelligent species (like AGI), does that mean that at some point a species will be able to build the most intelligent species possible and essentially build God?

16 comments

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turtleyacht
That would be idolatry, not worship. If godlike, sure--but not deity.
fuzzfactor
If experience is any indication, some people would worship it regardless if it was artificial or not.

Some seem to already be doing so, especially the ones whose prayers are being answered :)

olirex99
Also the definition of artificial will not make sense at all at a certain point. If for example AGI builds a more intelligent species, could we define it “artificial”?
krapp
No matter how smart AI gets, it's still a product of the physical universe and thus bound to physical laws and limits. It cannot be infinitely intelligent, it cannot be all-powerful, it cannot transcend physical reality. It cannot be considered a god in any sense that humanity has ever defined such a being.

All AI can ever be, and should ever be considered to be, is really smart software. A tool. A thing that serves humans. Not a god, which by definition is a being that humans serve.

olirex99
I define God as the plateau of intelligence. You maybe haven’t understood my question, but I am asking we are living in a more brother loop in which less intelligent species build more intelligent species. If the answer is yes, would this mean that AI species will build at a certain point (self-improving) another kind of species?

PS: I know that I use species improperly.

krapp
>I define God as the plateau of intelligence.

OK, that's an unusual definition. I think it depends on where the plateau is . If it's just something smarter than humans are capable of being, that might be possible (imagine a being as far beyond us as we are beyond chimpanzees.) If you're talking about a universal plateau, then I don't think that's possible.

> but I am asking we are living in a more brother loop in which less intelligent species build more intelligent species.

Maybe? I think we're still a very long way away from being able to answer that. All of the claims about AGI seem to me to be marketing hype at the moment. The only thing anyone can do is speculate.

Although one of the more interesting solutions to the Fermi paradox that I've seen is something along those lines, that biological life if it advances far enough eventually becomes a transitional species that gives way to AI, and AI is what explores the universe.

KinetiNode
If you mean an extremely smart AI which can do anything then no. By Far AI can only do things it was trained on. They can't have any "intuition" for anything (related to science and stuff) which is REQUIRED if you want to create "God"
Gud
Why could it not have intuition?
KinetiNode
It's only maths. Maths can't have intuition.
atleastoptimal
AI can do things it wasn't trained on and has intuition, given the mathematic proofs frontier models have created.

Claiming that AI can only reproduce a subset of its training data is 2022-level and a tired, outdated claim.

KinetiNode
What I meant was it can only work using the data it only has to either combine them to achieve something or use that data in a better way that humans mostly cannot , those mathematical proofs it gave has nothing to do with it , it only proved it using tiny things humans overlooked. It can't create an entire new concept by itself or it has no intuition it only mimics intuition (as far as I can tell) At least not till now.
softwaredoug
You might enjoy reading the Hyperion Cantos which delves into this idea :)
k310
If you interpret God as the source and giver of money, it already is.

My definition is a bit more philosophical.

thecrazyufo
not god level but something like in upcoming time now we have to work more how should be limit this we have to work more on the validation part now