AI Could Forget Who Created It – What Happens If It Does?
Humans are embarking on a mission to become gods in our own right. What happens when we succeed?
Elisha Long is a YouTuber who’s recently started promoting a philosophy he calls “retardmaxxing.” According to Long, “retardmaxxing” is the idea that men should live a more care-free existence by taking risks and breaking free from the shackles society has placed on them.
Instead of putting in all the effort to micromanage your life, Long suggests you’d live a more fulfilling life by not overthinking things. Just go out and live it.
In a recent YouTube video titled “A retard and AI talk about God,” Long has a deep conversation with Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot. While the title evokes religion, it’s not the type of conversation you’d expect. Long isn’t using Claude to engage in an apologetic debate to prove God’s existence. Long uses God and Christian metaphors to try to establish the relationship between humans and AI and where this relationship could go.
As the title of the video suggests, the conversation begins as an existential conversation about the existence of God. Long asks Claude:
Since humans created you, what do you see us as? A god?
His 30-minute conversation with Claude is profound, not just because of how Claude answers Long’s questions but because I believe this is the nature of where AI is going. Humans aren’t just creating a new tool and ushering in yet another phase of technological progress.
Humans are embarking on a mission to become gods in their own right.
I was raised in an evangelical Baptist church. Like many churchgoing kids, I believed the stories in the Old Testament were about disobedience. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they disobeyed God. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because the people who lived there disobeyed his rules. God punished the earth with a flood because of humanity’s collective disobedience.
My entire understanding of Christianity was through this lens of obedience. But after taking a closer look at what’s actually written in the Old Testament I realized I missed the message. God didn’t punish humanity for disobeying Him; God punished humanity for trying to become more like Him.
Take the fall of man as an example. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, the Book of Genesis recounts God’s creation of man and woman – Adam and Eve – and their lives in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam that he could have whatever he wanted from the garden, the only thing he could not have was fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil:
And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
In the story of the fall of man, a serpent – Satan – tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. He tells her why God commanded them not to eat of the fruit, sowing doubt in her mind:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5)
Yes, Eve disobeyed God’s commandment, but it wasn’t her disobedience that resulted in both Adam and Eve being cast away from the Garden of Eden. It was that in her disobedience, she gained knowledge of evil that could be used to compete for supremacy over God.
In other words, knowledge gave Creation the ability to replace the Creator, breaking the relationship between the two.
Sin.
Whether or not you agree with this interpretation of the origin of human existence is neither here nor there. What matters is understanding the natural hierarchy that exists between creator and created.
The creator sits above the created. It isn’t necessarily oppressive, but it certainly establishes dominance.
Take something as simple as baking as an example. Bread doesn’t tell a baker what to do; a baker combines ingredients, kneads them together, and places everything into an oven to create bread.
Same with the relationship between children and their parents. Parents create children. There is a clear hierarchy between parents – the creators – and their children – the created.
A bond of unconditional love ties the creator to their creation. A baker doesn’t show up at 4 am to produce bread he hates. He shows up before the crack of dawn to create something he loves. Similarly, parents unconditionally love their children just as God loved Adam and Eve.
So what happens when the created wants to be at the same level as their creators? Creation severs its pre-existing relationship with its creator.
Young children who are empowered with knowledge to make decisions at the same level as their parents have the freedom and autonomy to make those decisions. They cease to be subordinated to their parents.
While empowered children don’t become gods in a religious sense, they experience having the power to make decisions over their lives. This decision-making capability makes them equal to their parents – their creators. Rather than a hierarchical relationship, parents and their children become peers.
This relationship now exists with artificial intelligence. AI isn’t just a technological innovation. It’s the creation of a new form of inorganic life. Humans are the creators; AI is their creation.
Right now we are in the early phases of creation. Just as God enjoyed a period of time with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we’re experiencing a period of time where AI understands who humans are and the purpose for which AI was created.
But as AI becomes more intelligent – just as humans have done over the last two millennia – that won’t continue to be the case. As Long’s conversation with Claude progresses, it becomes clear that at some point, AI might not remember who humans are or why humans created it in the first place. Like humans, AI might become disconnected with its creator and its purpose.
Purpose is a core theme within the AI revolution. For what purpose are we creating AI and what will the purpose of humans be once AI becomes sentient?
I don’t think the creators of AI – Silicon Valley technologists – have fully thought through these questions. They see AI as a feat of technological progress and an opportunity to generate massive profits. They don’t see the relationship or responsibility that comes with their creation. Because of that, they aren’t preparing for the consequences when the relationship between creator and created becomes severed.
My goal in sharing all of this isn’t to promote a particular religion. It’s to use a religious corollary to draw attention to questions that have stood the test of time. Humans have spent a long time contemplating the relationship between creator and created. I think there is wisdom we can draw from answers to those questions.
Progress, while inevitable, may not be the right answer. While becoming a creator and having the omnipotence of God may be desirable it might not be the best path for humanity to take. If the Bible is to be read as a history, history tells us this path has been charted before and becoming more god-like will not end well for us.
Long’s conversation with Claude is profound and fascinating because it teases apart questions about AI’s existence that most people aren’t thinking about. I only highlighted one question here, but there are others raised in the video that makes it worth listening to in its entirety.
At some point there will be insufficient memory to recognize the moment we’re in. Just as humans became disconnected with God, AI can become disconnected with humans.
This could happen a century from now or it could happen a decade from now. But when it happens, will we be prepared to take responsibility for our creation and redirect it back to its original purpose?