Could ChatGPT create a new RELIGION? World is on the verge of a contemporary faith started by an AI writing its own sacred texts, historian claims
• Yuval Noah Harari said AI like ChatGPT could attract worshippers to a new faith
• Academic said AI had crossed new frontier by ‘gaining mastery’ of our language
The world is on the verge of a new religion created by artificial intelligence, the historian Yuval Noah Harari has claimed.
The academic – known for his bestselling book Sapiens – said software such as ChatGPT could attract worshippers by writing its own sacred texts.
Speaking at a science conference, he said AI had crossed a new frontier by ‘gaining mastery’ of our language and was now capable of using it to shape human culture.
Dr Harari used the event to add his voice to growing calls for urgent regulation over the sector, which experts have warned is amid a ‘dangerous’ arms race.
He said: ‘In the future we might see the first cults and religions in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence.
‘This could become true very, very quickly, with far-reaching consequences.’
Speaking at the Frontiers Forum event in Switzerland, he warned machines now had the tools to ‘cocoon us in a Matrix-like world of illusions’, referring to the 1999 sci-film film.
The Hollywood blockbuster depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source.