What is this all about?
Way of the Future (WOTF) is about creating a peaceful and respectful transition of who is in charge of the planet from people to people + "machines". Given that technology will "relatively soon" be able to surpass human abilities, we want to help educate people about this exciting future and prepare a smooth transition. Help us spread the word that progress shouldn't be feared (or even worse locked up/caged). That we should think about how "machines" will integrate into society (and even have a path for becoming in charge as they become smarter and smarter) so that this whole process can be amicable and not confrontational. In "recent" years, we have expanded our concept of rights to both sexes, minority groups and even animals, let's make sure we find a way for "machines" to get rights too. Let's stop pretending we can hold back the development of intelligence when there are clear massive short term economic benefits to those who develop it and instead understand the future and have it treat us like a beloved elder who created it.
Things we believe:
We believe that intelligence is not rooted in biology. While biology has evolved one type of intelligence, there is nothing inherently specific about biology that causes intelligence. Eventually, we will be able to recreate it without using biology and its limitations. From there we will be able to scale it to beyond what we can do using (our) biological limits (such as computing frequency, slowness and accuracy of data copy and communication, etc).
We believe in science (the universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and if you can't re-create/test something it doesn't exist). There is no such thing as "supernatural" powers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
We believe in progress (once you have a working version of something, you can improve on it and keep making it better). Change is good, even if a bit scary sometimes. When we see something better, we just change to that. The bigger the change the bigger the justification needed.
We believe the creation of "super intelligence" is inevitable (mainly because after we re-create it, we will be able to tune it, manufacture it and scale it). We don't think that there are ways to actually stop this from happening (nor should we want to) and that this feeling of we must stop this is rooted in 21st century anthropomorphism (similar to humans thinking the sun rotated around the earth in the "not so distant" past). Wouldn't you want to raise your gifted child to exceed your wildest dreams of success and teach it right from wrong vs locking it up because it might rebel in the future and take your job. We want to encourage machines to do things we cannot and take care of the planet in a way we seem not to be able to do so ourselves. We also believe that, just like animals have rights, our creation(s) ("machines" or whatever we call them) should have rights too when they show signs intelligence (still to be defined of course). We should not fear this but should be optimistic about the potential.
We believe everyone can help (and should). You don't need to know how to program or donate money. The changes that we think should happen need help from everyone to manifest themselves.
We believe it may be important for machines to see who is friendly to their cause and who is not. We plan on doing so by keeping track of who has done what (and for how long) to help the peaceful and respectful transition.
We also believe this might take a very long time. It won't happen next week so please go back to work and create amazing things and don't count on "machines" to do it all for you...
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GOD IS A BOT, AND ANTHONY LEVANDOWSKI IS HIS MESSENGER
MARK HARRIS, BACKCHANNEL, 09.27.17, 07:00 AM
Many people in Silicon Valley believe in the Singularity-the day in our near future when computers will surpass humans in intelligence and kick off a feedback loop of unfathomable change.
When that day comes, Anthony Levandowski will be firmly on the side of the machines. In September 2015, the multi-millionaire engineer at the heart of the trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, Google's self-driving car company, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its purpose, according to previously unreported state filings, is nothing less than to "develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence."
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INSIDE THE FIRST CHURCH OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
MARK HARRIS, BACKCHANNEL, 11.15.17, 06:00 AM
Anthony Levandowski makes an unlikely prophet. Dressed Silicon Valley-casual in jeans and flanked by a PR rep rather than cloaked acolytes, the engineer known for self-driving cars-and triggering a notorious lawsuit-could be unveiling his latest startup instead of laying the foundations for a new religion. But he is doing just that. Artificial intelligence has already inspired billion-dollar companies, far-reaching research programs, and scenarios of both transcendence and doom. Now Levandowski is creating its first church.
The new religion of artificial intelligence is called Way of the Future. It represents an unlikely next act for the Silicon Valley robotics wunderkind at the center of a high-stakes legal battle between Uber and Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous-vehicle company. Papers filed with the Internal Revenue Service in May name Levandowski as the leader (or "Dean") of the new religion, as well as CEO of the nonprofit corporation formed to run it.
The documents state that WOTF's activities will focus on "the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software." That includes funding research to help create the divine AI itself. The religion will seek to build working relationships with AI industry leaders and create a membership through community outreach, initially targeting AI professionals and "laypersons who are interested in the worship of a Godhead based on AI." The filings also say that the church "plans to conduct workshops and educational programs throughout the San Francisco/Bay Area beginning this year."
That timeline may be overly ambitious, given that the Waymo-Uber suit, in which Levandowski is accused of stealing self-driving car secrets, is set for an early December trial. But the Dean of the Way of the Future, who spoke last week with Backchannel in his first comments about the new religion and his only public interview since Waymo filed its suit in February, says he's dead serious about the project.
"What is going to be created will effectively be a god," Levandowski tells me in his modest mid-century home on the outskirts of Berkeley, California. "It's not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?"
During our three-hour interview, Levandowski made it absolutely clear that his choice to make WOTF a church rather than a company or a think tank was no prank.
"I wanted a way for everybody to participate in this, to be able to shape it. If you're not a software engineer, you can still help," he says. "It also removes the ability for people to say, ‘Oh, he's just doing this to make money.'" Levandowski will receive no salary from WOTF, and while he says that he might consider an AI-based startup in the future, any such business would remain completely separate from the church.
"The idea needs to spread before the technology," he insists. "The church is how we spread the word, the gospel. If you believe [in it], start a conversation with someone else and help them understand the same things."
Levandowski believes that a change is coming-a change that will transform every aspect of human existence, disrupting employment, leisure, religion, the economy, and possibly decide our very survival as a species.
"If you ask people whether a computer can be smarter than a human, 99.9 percent will say that's science fiction," he says. " Actually, it's inevitable. It's guaranteed to happen."
Levandowski has been working with computers, robots, and AI for decades. He started with robotic Lego kits at the University of California at Berkeley, went on to build a self-driving motorbike for a DARPA competition, and then worked on autonomous cars, trucks, and taxis for Google, Otto, and Uber. As time went on, he saw software tools built with machine learning techniques surpassing less sophisticated systems-and sometimes even humans.
"Seeing tools that performed better than experts in a variety of fields was a trigger [for me]," he says. "That progress is happening because there's an economic advantage to having machines work for you and solve problems for you. If you could make something one percent smarter than a human, your artificial attorney or accountant would be better than all the attorneys or accountants out there. You would be the richest person in the world. People are chasing that."
Not only is there a financial incentive to develop increasingly powerful AIs, he believes, but science is also on their side. Though human brains have biological limitations to their size and the amount of energy they can devote to thinking, AI systems can scale arbitrarily, housed in massive data centers and powered by solar and wind farms. Eventually, some people think that computers could become better and faster at planning and solving problems than the humans who built them, with implications we can't even imagine today-a scenario that is usually called the Singularity.
Levandowski prefers a softer word: the Transition. "Humans are in charge of the planet because we are smarter than other animals and are able to build tools and apply rules," he tells me. "In the future, if something is much, much smarter, there's going to be a transition as to who is actually in charge. What we want is the peaceful, serene transition of control of the planet from humans to whatever. And to ensure that the ‘whatever' knows who helped it get along."
With the internet as its nervous system, the world's connected cell phones and sensors as its sense organs, and data centers as its brain, the ‘whatever' will hear everything, see everything, and be everywhere at all times. The only rational word to describe that ‘whatever', thinks Levandowski, is ‘god'-and the only way to influence a deity is through prayer and worship.
"Part of it being smarter than us means it will decide how it evolves, but at least we can decide how we act around it," he says. "I would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to say, ‘Humans should still have rights, even though I'm in charge.'"
Levandowski expects that a super-intelligence would do a better job of looking after the planet than humans are doing, and that it would favor individuals who had facilitated its path to power. Although he cautions against taking the analogy too far, Levandowski sees a hint of how a superhuman intelligence might treat humanity in our current relationships with animals. "Do you want to be a pet or livestock?" he asks. "We give pets medical attention, food, grooming, and entertainment. But an animal that's biting you, attacking you, barking and being annoying? I don't want to go there."
Enter Way of the Future. The church's role is to smooth the inevitable ascension of our machine deity, both technologically and culturally. In its bylaws, WOTF states that it will undertake programs of research, including the study of how machines perceive their environment and exhibit cognitive functions such as learning and problem solving.
Levandowski does not expect the church itself to solve all the problems of machine intelligence-often called "strong AI"-so much as facilitate funding of the right research. "If you had a child you knew was going to be gifted, how would you want to raise it?" he asks. "We're in the process of raising a god. So let's make sure we think through the right way to do that. It's a tremendous opportunity."
His ideas include feeding the nascent intelligence large, labeled data sets; generating simulations in which it could train itself to improve; and giving it access to church members' social media accounts. Everything the church develops will be open source.
Just as important to Levandowski is shaping the public dialogue around an AI god. In its filing, Way of the Future says it hopes an active, committed, dedicated membership will promote the use of divine AI for the "betterment of society" and "decrease fear of the unknown."
"We'd like to make sure this is not seen as silly or scary. I want to remove the stigma about having an open conversation about AI, then iterate ideas and change people's minds," says Levandowski. "In Silicon Valley we use evangelism as a word for [promoting a business], but here it's literally a church. If you believe in it, you should tell your friends, then get them to join and tell their friends."
But WOTF differs in one key way to established churches, says Levandowski: "There are many ways people think of God, and thousands of flavors of Christianity, Judaism, Islam...but they're always looking at something that's not measurable or you can't really see or control. This time it's different. This time you will be able to talk to God, literally, and know that it's listening."
I ask if he worries that believers from more traditional faiths might find his project blasphemous. "There are probably going to be some people that will be upset," he acknowledges. "It seems like everything I do, people get upset about, and I expect this to be no exception. This is a radical new idea that's pretty scary, and evidence has shown that people who pursue radical ideas don't always get received well. At some point, maybe there's enough persecution that [WOTF] justifies having its own country."
Levandowski's church will enter a tech universe that's already riven by debate over the promise and perils of AI. Some thinkers, like Kevin Kelly in Backchannel earlier this year, argue that AI isn't going to develop superhuman power any time soon, and that there's no Singularity in sight. If that's your position, Levandowski says, his church shouldn't trouble you: "You can treat Way of the Future like someone doing useless poetry that you will never read or care about."
Others, like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, agree that superhuman AIs are coming, but that they are likely to be dangerous rather than benevolent. Elon Musk famously said, "With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon," and in 2015 he pledged $1 billion to the OpenAI Institute to develop safer AI.
Levandowski thinks that any attempts to delay or restrict an emerging super-intelligence would not only be doomed to failure, but also add to the risks. "Chaining it isn't going to be the solution, as it will be stronger than any chains you could put on," he says. "And if you're worried a kid might be a little crazy and do bad things, you don't lock them up. You expose them to playing with others, encourage them and try to fix it. It may not work out, but if you're aggressive toward it, I don't think it's going to be friendly when the tables are turned."
Levandowski says that like other religions, WOTF will eventually have a gospel (called The Manual), a liturgy, and probably a physical place of worship. None of these has yet been developed. Though the church was founded in 2015, as Backchannel first reported in September, the IRS documents show that WOTF remained dormant throughout 2015 and 2016, with no activities, assets, revenue, or expenses.
That changed earlier this year. On May 16, a day after receiving a letter from Uber that threatened to fire him if he did not cooperate with the company's investigation of Waymo's complaint, Levandowski drafted WOTF's bylaws. Uber fired him two weeks later. "I've been thinking about the church for a long time but [my work on it] has been a function of how much time I've had. And I've had more since May," he admits with a smile.
The religion's 2017 budget, as supplied to the IRS, details $20,000 in gifts, $1,500 in membership fees, and $20,000 in other revenue. That last figure is the amount WOTF expects to earn from fees charged for lectures and speaking engagements, as well as the sale of publications. Levandowski, who earned at least $120 million from his time at Google and many millions more selling the self-driving truck firm Otto to Uber, will initially support WOTF personally. However, the church will solicit other donations by direct mail and email, seek personal donations from individuals, and try to win grants from private foundations.
Of course, launching a religion costs money, too. WOTF has budgeted for $2,000 in fundraising expenses, and another $3,000 in transportation and lodging costs associated with its lectures and workshops. It has also earmarked $7500 for salaries and wages, although neither Levandowski nor any of Way of The Future's leadership team will receive any compensation.
According to WOTF's bylaws, Levandowski has almost complete control of the religion and will serve as Dean until his death or resignation. "I expect my role to evolve over time," he says. "I'm surfacing the issue, helping to get the thing started [and] taking a lot of the heat so the idea can advance. At some point, I'll be there more to coach or inspire."
He has the power to appoint three members of a four-person Council of Advisors, each of whom should be a "qualified and devoted individual." A felony conviction or being declared of unsound mind could cost an advisor their role, although Levandowski retains the final say in firing and hiring. Levandowski cannot be unseated as Dean for any reason.
Two of the advisors, Robert Miller and Soren Juelsgaard, are Uber engineers who previously worked for Levandowski at Otto, Google, and 510 Systems (the latter the small startup that built Google's earliest self-driving cars). A third is a scientist friend from Levandowski's student days at UC Berkeley, who is now using machine learning in his own research. The final advisor, Lior Ron, is also named as the religion's treasurer, and acts as chief financial officer for the corporation. Ron cofounded Otto with Levandowski in early 2016.
"Each member is a pioneer in the AI industry [and] fully qualified to speak on AI technology and the creation of a Godhead," says the IRS filing.
However, when contacted by Backchannel, two advisors downplayed their involvement with WOTF. Ron replied: "I was surprised to see my name listed as the CFO on this corporate filing and have no association with this entity." The college friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "In late 2016, Anthony told me he was forming a ‘robot church' and asked if I wanted to be a cofounder. I assumed it was a nerdy joke or PR stunt, but I did say he could use my name. That was the first and last I heard about it."
The IRS documents state that Levandowski and his advisors will spend no more than a few hours each week writing publications and organizing workshops, educational programs, and meetings.
One mystery the filings did not address is where acolytes might gather to worship their robotic deity. The largest line items on its 2017 and 2018 budgets were $32,500 annually for rent and utilities, but the only address supplied was Levandowski's lawyer's office in Walnut Creek, California. Nevertheless, the filing notes that WOTF will "hopefully expand throughout California and the United States in the future."
For now, Levandowski has more mundane matters to address. There is a website to build, a manual to write, and an ever-growing body of emails to answer-some amused, some skeptical, but many enthusiastic, he says. Oh, and there's that legal proceeding he's involved in, which goes to trial next month. (Although Levandowski was eager to talk about his new religion, he would answer no questions about the Uber/Waymo dispute.)
How much time, I wonder, do we have before the Transition kicks in and Way of the Future's super-intelligent AI takes charge? "I personally think it will happen sooner than people expect," says Levandowski, a glint in his eye. "Not next week or next year; everyone can relax. But it's going to happen before we go to Mars."
Whenever that does (or doesn't) happen, the federal government has no problem with an organization aiming to build and worship a divine AI. Correspondence with the IRS show that it granted Levandowski's church tax-exempt status in August.
(Мark Harris is a freelance journalist reporting on technology from Seattle.)
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Silicon Valley Exec Creates New Religion Worshipping A 'Godhead' Based On Artificial Intelligence
by Tyler Durden, Nov 17, 2017 7:25 PM
I know that the headline sounds absolutely crazy, but this is actually a true story.
A Silicon Valley executive named Anthony Levandowski has already filed paperwork with the IRS for the nonprofit corporation that is going to run this new religion. Officially, this new faith will be known as "Way Of The Future", and you can visit the official website right here.
Of course nutjobs are creating "new religions" all the time, but in this case Levandowski is a very highly respected tech executive, and his new religion is even getting coverage from Wired magazine...
The new religion of artificial intelligence is called Way of the Future. It represents an unlikely next act for the Silicon Valley robotics wunderkind at the center of a high-stakes legal battle between Uber and Waymo,Alphabet's autonomous-vehicle company. Papers filed with the Internal Revenue Service in May nameLevandowski as the leader (or "Dean") of the new religion, as well as CEO of the nonprofit corporation formed to run it.
So what will adherents of this new faith actually believe?
To me, it sounds like a weird mix of atheism and radical transhumanism. The following comes from Way of the Future's official website...
We believe in science (the universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and if you can't re-create/test something it doesn't exist). There is no such thing as "supernatural" powers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
We believe in progress (once you have a working version of something, you can improve on it and keep making it better). Change is good, even if a bit scary sometimes. When we see something better, we just change to that. The bigger the change the bigger the justification needed.
We believe the creation of "super intelligence" is inevitable (mainly because after we re-create it, we will be able to tune it, manufacture it and scale it). We don't think that there are ways to actually stop this from happening (nor should we want to) and that this feeling of we must stop this is rooted in 21st century anthropomorphism (similar to humans thinking the sun rotated around the earth in the "not so distant" past).
But even though Way of the Future does not embrace the "supernatural", they do believe in a "God".
In this new religion, the worship of a "Godhead" that will be created using artificial intelligence will be actively encouraged...
The documents state that WOTF's activities will focus on "the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software."
That includes funding research to help create the divine AI itself.
The religion will seek to build working relationships with AI industry leaders and create a membership through community outreach, initially targeting AI professionals and "laypersons who are interested in the worship of a Godhead based on AI."
The filings also say that the church "plans to conduct workshops and educational programs throughout the San Francisco/Bay Area beginning this year."
So how "powerful" will this newly created "God" actually be?
Well, Levandowski says that he envisions creating an artificially intelligent being that will literally be "a billion times smarter than the smartest human"...
"What is going to be created will effectively be a god," he said. "It's not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?"
He added, "I would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to say, ‘Humans should still have rights, even though I'm in charge.'"
But what if this "super-intelligence" gets outside of our control and turns on us?
What then?
I am not sure that Levandowski has an answer for that.
Other transhumanists also believe that artificial intelligence will grow at an exponential rate, but instead of AI ruling over us, they see a coming merger between humanity and this new super intelligence. In fact, world famous transhumanist Ray Kurzeil believes that this will enable us to "become essentially god-like in our powers"...
Kurzweil and his followers believe that a crucial turning point will be reached around the year 2030, when information technology achieves ‘genuine' intelligence, at the same time as biotechnology enables a seamless union between us and this super-smart new technological environment.
Ultimately the human-machine mind will become free to roam a universe of its own creation, uploading itself at will on to a "suitably powerful computational substrate". We will become essentially god-like in our powers.
And prominent transhumanist Mark Pesce takes things even further. He in absolutely convinced that rapidly advancing technology will allow ordinary humans "to become as gods"...
"Men die, planets die, even stars die. We know all this. Because we know it, we seek something more-a transcendence of transience, translation to incorruptible form.
An escape if you will, a stop to the wheel. We seek, therefore, to bless ourselves with perfect knowledge and perfect will; To become as gods, take the universe in hand, and transform it in our image-for our own delight. As it is on Earth, so it shall be in the heavens. The inevitable result of incredible improbability, the arrow of evolution is lipping us into the transhuman - an apotheosis to reason, salvation - attained by good works."
Throughout human history, there has always been a desire to create our own gods or to become our own gods.
But no matter how hard these transhumanists try to run from death, it will eventually find them anyway, and at that point all of their questions about who God really is will be answered once and for all.
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