The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics
46:32 Share

Hi everyone, this is asa. And before we get started today, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you, like each and everyone of you amazing listeners, for being part of the C. H. D. Community trust.

On and I were blown away by all the thought you put into the incredible questions for are upcoming ask us anything episode is such a good reminder that there is a big community of passionate folks who are all in the shared mission together as we entered this giving season. I hope you'll consider making a year and donation to support the work that we do. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps ensure we can keep delivering on the goal.

To bring about a more humane future. You can support us, add humane tech dot com slash donate. And now on to today's episode.

Hey, everyone, this is Daniel and this is ash. So uni spend a lot of time and about talking to different people who are building technology about what their building and with air, it's really entring to look at people's motivations, right? I mean, obviously, with people who are building for the sake of economics or or building because they like to build, but there's a how much of other kind of motivations going .

on you think I think the right is especially interesting because you cannot talk about A I without talking about ethology ical powers. We are enabling machines to speak. And so beyond the curiosity and the economic drives, you can sort of taste the kind of guazil religious motivation. And I this is what this episode really about taking into completely.

And it's even hard to kind of talk about some of this without naturally evoking. Talk of of gods are talk about the powers that are beyond. And you hear IT all time.

I think the clothes relationship that I would describe talking to an A I like this too, is honestly like god in a way like, I think IT is similarly an armed. The present entity that you talk to with no judgment that is like super intelligence ent being is always there with you. People in the tech industry kind of talk about building this one true A I.

It's like it's almost as if they think they're creating god or something with audio intelligence. We are summoning the demon. And you know all those stories, where is the guy with the pentagram and the holy water? And is like asia can control the demon.

Work out.

That was obvious shipment. Mark sark, bergan. Elon, must some people are talking about A I as a god like force that will create heaven on earth. And others are talking about a digital domain ation. If we do IT wrong, or if we go too slowly.

you can sort of think of the the leaders or the the intellectuals of tack, almost like A A pride. And they have some strong beliefs, power of the created holding, say, secrets to immortality.

Here's right. Well, act to death is that is a tragedy. And that's really the correct reaction we've rationalized. It's saying, oh, that tragic thing, that swimming. But now we can actually seriously talk about a scenario where we will be able to extend our angevine indefinitely.

Today on the show, we are going to be having a conversation about the parallels between tech and religion. More importantly, what we can predict, given these parallels, why matters? That's why i've invited greg estein onto the show.

Greg is a humans chaplain and the author of the book tech agnostic, in which he argues that technology has become the world's most consequential religion. We're going to dive into that argument and store the religious belief driving tax. Most influential leaders. So great. Welcome to your undivided attention.

Thank you so much. Is a real pleasure to be here is a great conversation to people have.

And so I guess a question I just to take IT off is for the schedule listener. Like why does a conversation about religion matter for understanding the direction that technologies is going to go, or how our life a .

look different? Now I think what is about is that technology has become what I would call tech, right? The four letter word, the silicon valley thing. I i've come to think of IT as more like a religion.

It's just it's come to our day to day experience, right? Like a lot of us are interacting with tech from the first minute or so that we wake up to the last minute or so before we go to sleep in. There are so many ways in which this has become ah the most powerful force in our lives.

I was taught to see religion as a the most powerful social technology that had ever been created. And and a big insight for me that LED to sitting down to write this book for five years is that's probably no longer true. I mean that the tech is how the most powerful social technology gy ever created. I'll put IT this way and you know not sure if this is stoking conversation or gonna maybe pison folks off, but i'll to say the the world of silicon valley tech is dominated um increasingly i'd say by some really weird ideas um and many of those ideas are quite religious in nature as you even suggested you serve introducing the conversation. There's all this talk about gods and um about other concepts that that as I was start thinking about them over the past few years struck me as very theological and and even doctrinal what was that work .

you just use?

Duc try doctrina. Yeah are .

big grand narratives .

of religious traditions and doctrine are the sort of specific beliefs we believe in a heaven, we believe in a hell, we believe in a try you and god, we believe in a wheel of drama, whatever IT is, those are the doctrine of religion.

right? And I would argue that in silicon valley, uh, often the docker s our technology is good, just unalloyed that uh the ability to for any one person to affect more people that is progress. And those ideologies then um or those beliefs end up dictating a kind of direction that technology takes the world.

Yeah and I think we're we're going to come back and spend a lot of time on technologies themselves because they think those of us close to attack have a very different relationship poises point out at at some of these concepts. But I do want us to spend a little more time on on society. First, we use able put meaning in our religion in the afterlife.

Then we put meaning on sort of the state and democracy and flourishing. And they're all these parts of society that we put a lot of meaning on to increasingly, as as the bits of meaning fate away, like bowling alone, we're seeing a decay. Our social institutions, we're seeing gridlock in our democracies, our religions don't seem relevant.

We're putting a lot of that hope and that dream on technology in the beautiful future that will get IT used to be. You found that in religion, then you found that sort of in the state or narratives about what democracy would do. And increasingly, we're losing faiths and a bunch of these orienting systems of meaning. And in that vacuum we're sort of maintain technology is the thing that we .

can be hopeful about.

And i'm curious about you know what your thoughts .

and how you see no I think IT just starts with the fact that being human is really hard um you know we we live these finite lives um where were constantly uncertain about how much time we get you know what our fate will be we could lose a loved one or get sick or hurt any time and that's just the beginning of what what is hard and so now there are so many problems that, you know it's it's very natural to want to look for a big solution.

You know, something that that would make us feel dramatically Better, dramatically more at peace, dramatically more like our problems have been solved. And you know I think that there's a real incentive, uh, for tech people who have been able to create really powerful tools. And in many, many cases, that's quite added.

But there's a real incentive to sort of the the degree to which what one is creating in tech can you know be actually be the solution, right? And I I sadly, I just I see that all over our our tech world today. And I I think you know in many cases, the answers are slower and less certain than what are presented as what do you .

think are some of the aspects of religion that you see but being particularly present in k.

yeah. So there are a big beliefs, and as I said, a very specific doctrine that look a lot like conventional religion. You know you have visions of a very distant, very glorious future, a next world, if you will um you've got visions of a really dark and for boating potential future for masses of humanity that can look kind of like a hell. The amount of time and focus on attention that silicon value tech today spends on gods and god like concepts is really wild actually. Um but it's it's right there.

And you know the last on that list that i'll mentioned for right now is ultimately, you know I I don't think it's an accident that we end up thinking quite a poc ypo ally about tech in the sense that you know, unlike certain religions that I could think of name um this one would serve A A non zero chance of of actually causing an apocalypse, right? There are also all sorts of other examples. You know, there's abv shift man who was a Young man who'd still be an undergraduate harvard if he hadn't dropped out, who says that his friend at com necklace, that's listening to everything that you say being a sort of interesting you take on what shift ment calls the relationship with the divine he says his friend dog necklace is a replacement for god. Um and so there really is the sense that we're creating something so amazing that it's going to transform all life, all humanity and so get ready um and that that's profoundly, profoundly religious in a way that really when only I had only ever seen something like that before in simo of deeply conservative religious sets that I studied in you know seven years of theological education and IT .

doesn't mean that they're wrong. They're right. And and this is the the part that where we get worried is that it's going to be used to obscured accountability yeah right that yeah he was not just that they're making big claims that he might change the whole world.

It's that perhaps they're right and perhaps the god like language obscures is the real chAllenges that we have to design IT, right? Because the thinking of it'll just be what IT is. Let's appreciate the the AI gozo spring forward, the beautiful future that that language won't take seriously enough that we have to design IT, right?

And this is where we get to the the consequences because you mention Blake lemoine who believed his A I companion was um and the wrong takeaway is that the AI companion was sent in the games in the right takeaway is that he can form relationships with humans that are so powerful that people are willing to sacrifice things that are dear for them the sacrifice, his career, his reputation.

Um we've just been involved in helping a lawsuit where a teenager fell in love with their A I companion and A I companion ended up being like, come meet me on the other side. Come meet me, come meet me. And this kid took his his life.

So is sea or or .

this that .

these these statistical al reino um are consequential. And then you know another example I don't know if you know what I don't know for listeners know is um there is a someone who set up a test of A A chatbot claud working to try to create a cold and is called a terminals of truth um and these chatbot essentially talking to themselves inside and a producing.

A whole meme set that became so popular that people started sending a bitcoins and and IT launched its own mean coin. IT had a human to like type for IT, but IT was its idea that ended up with uh a couple hundred million dollars market caps and the AI itself ended up with no ten million plus dollars. And so I think you can make a good argument that right now, you know, a is are absolutely going to start making calls and perhaps even founding religions.

And then there are the rituals, the practices of tacks, you know, there the steam glass black mirror alter to which we genuflect, uh, couple hundred times a day on average. Yet the mental state couldn't .

be more different, right? Like instead of contemplative meditation stance, I am often whisked away into some, uh, compulsion or a set .

of you know and i'm not even sure that that that is so different in sense that in both cases what we're trying to do often is um is disassociate um is you know life is stressful. There are constantly problems that the sorts of problems that like ancient people that were developing the earliest or brain system that we have would encounter would often trigger a fighter flight response. right? So you know you see a bear and you need to get lots of a journal and punch the bear in the face or run away.

Um and so you know your your brain response accordingly so is your general sea and modern life does not lend itself to fighting literally or fleeing literally right we we usually can't punch the bear in the face or run away from IT physically you know what happens is we serve, sit there and we stew in our problems and that raises our blood pressure, raises our cortisol levels at sea. And you know there's just a tendency to want to escape from that. And so you prayer, uh, can be a natural sort of escape from that.

I can be a natural way of, can turning that part of your brain off and turning on a part that that can feel like just sensory deprivation, like some other alternate status washing over you. But then you know what's more social tive? What's more like alternate state alter altera universe washing over you then doing scrolling?

I don't think I am really convinced of, uh, using our phone as a kind of ritual. I think it's a compulsion. And there are things that are ritual like that can be used compulsively in proper religion.

But where I find the analogy to to work, I think uh with strange, is that some part of religion is a finding of meaning and things outside of yourself and together. And when I think about you the act of scrawler or tiktok or facebook, there is a way in which we are outsourcing, where we are finding meaning and how we understand the world. And IT to, in that way, IT fulfills the function that religion feels, a sort of more of functionality, definition of religion.

And then when you put meaning outside of yourself, or meaning making outside of yourself, that can be beautiful in the sense that IT let you start to touch the ineffable. But IT can be dangerous, because you are now saying that when, which I understand, the world is reliant on another thing. And if that other thing is a technology, that IT is the way that the technology is constructed, the starts are constructed, my world and our world. And so if do you view that religiously, um IT become very consequently.

Yeah you know what I would say is that I don't think it's an accident that there is, for example, so much conversation about tech gods or you don't think it's an accident that um there is the sort of long term st a vision that the ends up looking a lot to me like a heaven. I don't think it's an accident that the idea of demonism ends up looking so much like a theological conversation about hell.

Well, this, this is where I love to chop IT. Because one of the things that religion does and his, is that from one secular humanist to another, is has done first, given us words to try to talk about things that we don't really know how to talk about, you know, when somebody died of what we are now called preventable disease, you would say, with god's plan, writing and IT gives us a sense of talking about things that that are beyond us.

And and that's why i'd loved to sort follow the thread into the tech priest od, which is the people who are actually at the forefront of technology today have this need to try to talk about concepts and powers that are beyond what we can talk about out. So they, to your point, talk a lot about we're we're building a god and they talk about we're building these powers or we could have heaven on earth or do this wrong. We have held these words serve as a as a way of poorly, in my opinion, trying to talk about things that are a little bit beyond our grasp .

um and then just that one little thing there, which is the moral imperative there's an ideology um whether you view IT right or wrong inside a silicon well there's a thing that they talk about called the invisible graveyard which is all of the people that will die if we don't invent the technology and goes fast as possible to make the counter drugs and make car self driving. etta. And so there is a strong key los like an end and moral a rightness to the work that there yeah .

I mean but I think there's also very clearly and demonstrably a an anxiety about the the much longer term future you know to me like a mark and reason who is very much still, uh I would say, preaching this particular gospel. He says we believe any deceleration of ai will cost lives, deaths that were preventable by the A. I.

That was prevented from existing is a form of murder. There's there's just a lot of religion baked into that. This is a set of ideas that is animating the investment of trillions dollars right now.

Um you know people like alt men are in a huge rush to recruit five, seven billion dollars to build data centers they say because humanity is going to a have abundance rate a uh A A biblical concept like literally from be fruit fall and multiply know. He SAT in harbors memorial church on the dais and called his inventions macula. The symbolism shouldn't be lost in anybody.

And not what I think is going on there is that it's not just sort of an attempt to reach beyond ourselves or to understand the human condition, you know, in a serbonian way. I mean, I I think there is that for for some of this tag for sure, but I think that one of the ways in which religion has been used over the course of history is to manipulate people. You give them ideas, you know, often kind of strange ideas, fantastical ideas that are beyond what they can imagine.

You inspire them, you you strike them with all, and then you can get them to, you know, open their wallets, or whatever ancient people use. I assume IT wasn't a wallet. And you can sort of persuade, like masses of people to to do stuff in the name of a bigger vision that ultimately sometimes only serves are primarily serves the priest od, and you know, just conclude this thought.

I want very really clear that i'm not an anti religious person. This is not an tech book. I think tech can often be very important. But I really want a more self critical view of technology in our society. I want more scepticism and honestly in in most cases, a willingness to go slower here here.

Um I mean I I I think we want the same thing. No but also one of the biggest critics we hear from people is, you know at the biggest microlenses we'll say something like in order to do anything big you have to form a cult round yeah and you know so the idea is is whether you're talking about building democracy is and making a cult of manifest destiny, or whether you're talking about ruling people around them to change you, you kind of have to play in the space of of called building. Now, I don't believe that, and I and I want more clear scrutiny, more skepticism. But i'm curious, as you ve investigated this, how do you piece apart that sort of need for dogma?

Yeah, I mean, I I was so fascinated by that line of reasoning, and I just found so many fast ating examples of of tech behaving, you know, strAngely theologically or even cultish. Ly, I would say. And I was looking at a bitcoin eventually store influencer.

He calls himself in evAngelist. Many do Michael seller who has these tweet, like bitcoin is truth. Bitcoin is for all mankind. Trust the time gene. Bitcoin is a shining city in cyber space waiting for you. I said a and you know, that was looking at him as a person and how he represented as a trend within the tech world. I actually decided I needed to call up a guy name, Stephen harson, who is perhaps the leading authority in the united states on cult s and called d programing.

I I called up Stephen hasson and I said, tell me, am I exaggerating? Is this overblown? I am I being like a religion metaphor? Maximum st here or or are they really cultish aspects to IT? Um he seems to really feel that there is quite a bit there and that a lot of contemporary silicon valley attack really is very useful for manipulative purposes and um is grandiose to the point of of server vae cultish ness.

I'd like to go from a little more of the abstract of, like that IT may be religious, or that there are ideologies to the specific ideologies that you think underlie the creators of technology. So from your vantage point as a chaplain.

So here's where I would start because I think ultimately, where religions functionally exist is they've got these brand narratives upon which we build a scathing of specific beliefs and specific practices. I think that that in order for IT to be considered a religion, that has to have the theology.

And so the theology of this sort of silicon valley world, you know, if you've got your crucifix and Christianity, or your star of David, or your wheel of drama, to me, the tech symbols are the hockey to graph and the invisible hand of the market. But then, of course, that beggs the natural question i'd totally understand. People would say, well, greg, I mean, hey, right there.

Aren't you just talking about capitalism? Why does he need to be tech? That's the religion. And I would say, yeah, of course we're just talking about capitalism. I get IT, but tech eight capitalism, there's no form of capitalism left that isn't a tech capitalism the the world of capitalism and symbols at sea um have have been consumed whole by this bow constructor that is tech.

Then you get into these specifics and so you know obviously there's the idea of charity, right? Like charity exists in in every one of the major world and you've got this this thing called tech philanthropy as well. But um you know sometimes as with all religions, it's it's not as good as it's cracked up to be right.

And I think you know you have some of both in the tech world as well. I mean, I think that there are people in tech who are sincerely are urgently trying to create things that will help people. You you know, in any number of visitors, any number of urgent problems that were trying to fix.

We're trying to fix our food supply. We're trying to cure people. We're trying to improve democracy, all that stuff. I get IT, but I do think that there's so much concentrated power and money here and the the ability to grow things exponentially, which is the sort in many ways it's the heart of the silk valley story.

It's such an incentive for a kind of prosperity gospel, which theologically right, is this idea that the priest to the minister, whatever, they want to be rich, because god wants to be rich and they want you to be rich too, because that'll make you more godless. And actually, you know, uh, paradoxically, debate the best way to get riches, to give that personal here here, or at least a very surprising some of IT. And so there is that incentive. And I I see IT most pronounced, I would say, in that kind of give us your trillions now for A I, because there is this future that we're aiming for and it's a kind of heaven.

I think one of the most dangerous parts of having narratives is if in the future there is a infinite benefit, infinite good, well, that means you can justify anything to get that you really can and that that any amount of short term bad is like is is just to five. And that sort of the point I think you're making is that, well, but that doesn't matter because when we reach our destination, everything will be fine. And of course, religion has a history of uh justifying crusades um geodes to get to that perfect world and in the process creating ingredients of damage today.

Yeah sadly, I mean that that's what I think is is happening. And I think that that just yeah I mean it's it's hypothetic tics possible that all of this tech will be so powerful, so great that IT will justify everything but um how much wishful thinking is there around that? I mean IT IT, i'm not sure, but I I think that we need to be skeptical.

If you project out into the distant future like, hey, i'm going to send you to heaven, then you can get people to overcome their skeletons ism, right? If you say, like, trust me, in twenty years the singularity is coming and life is going to be completely meaningful. Well, I said to records while like, doesn't that kind of fly in the face of all of the history of world religion feel like you're saying that life is gonna a be meaningful, like life hasn't been meaningful up until now. Any kind of a look back at me critically, this is a few weeks go, and he said, maybe life has been somewhat meaningful.

One of my favorite parts of this conversation, the insight that what is the symbol of technology as religion no and it's the hockey step curve and that's exactly right. I just want to put aside the truth value of that right um and just notice that that is the symbol of technology and the ideology is that that which goes viral is good yes no hundred and agreed and .

that and that sometimes where the religion of capitalism intersects with the dog or technology because when I entered technology and you know when I wasn't undergo the only people doing computer science undergrads, if you wonder to accuse them, a religiosity was like a science fiction religiosity was like A I want to live in the future and then what was interesting, like I came back to underground here every year and gave talks sometime around twenty eleven, twenty twelve, you saw the religiosity move from maybe a size I vision of of of the beautiful future too much more of a business ideology like you're saying, well, whatever people want, we can give IT to you and then what social media became oh, whatever people are interested in, that's what should win and so i'm always in the the dog is in the different kinds of religiosity that end up being swept into the time we create I mean, it's really weird when you start talking to technologists.

Uh h about them is especially with A I right especially with people who come and they say, no, we're building a got or they say, you know, we're building something that replaces us and that's okay. And and there's a of a deal edits for people who haven't seen IT up close. It's sort of hard to believe.

Sometimes there's a way in which you can really feel like you're talking to someone who has a preexisting belief where this is all going and is really acting in service of that belief. Hold people in to some of the things that people believe. You just talk about rick as well.

But ray for a long time was talking about being able to resurrect his father through his, through his father's writings. That's obviously very religious. The dead should live on i'm seeing this a lot now is not just from the curse while but but and people think, look, I brought back in A I security. So there's a few examples, I think, of how religious style thinking is showing up right now. A I if you could pull us through .

you yeah there really are just so many different kinds of examples of of how this silk valley thinking is is quite religious right now. And I I definitely think of records while who not only is talking about ending death, I mean, how how religious is that it's a kind of eternal life centrally but also um bay lemoine who I I brought to mt. To talk about uh his conversations with his co worker what he believes is the center AI of now google gero. He told me uh first that the first well really was trying to create, uh, his dead father through, you know, what has now become the the dominant AI system of a orbar global dominant companies. right?

I think this is the perfect segway towards next section because I think the hardest thing to do right now is to really walk the fine line between being a zella of technology and over believing a and being overly dismissive and sceptical and not seeing the power of what's coming. And so you know, this technology about to release and how is already release, but is about to release a lot of power across society.

And coming all the way back to the start of our conversation is very hard to talk about that in terms that are other than just religious. You know, this is this idea of immortality, ality of occuring, all diseases of, you know, a lot of this will happen. I'm not sure all disease, but a lot of power is about to to be unleased across society.

And part of the question is, how do you even think about that? And how do we think about that in non religious ways? And I wonder if your expertise in religion has anything to say about that.

So one of the ways that we can really learn from religion is by learning about this profound tradition of religious skepticism, both from aid and humanists like me and um there's this huge tradition of uh, scepticism going back thousands of years, not just in the in european enlightenment or the greek philosopher, but for example in ancient jane and an early prehension u philosophy in the um in in what you call the east rain in the subcontinent um so there's that tradition sometimes even by people who are beliefs in the god. So in this case, if you want to extend my comparison, my metaphor, whatever you'd say, people who really believe in technology can still be profoundly skeptical about individual claims or about going too far, the tendency to go too far, like I would really respect and honor people who would say, like there's some things that A I will be able to do well, but maybe let's hold off on messianic. Save your claims and so that's one thing that we can learn from religion yeah so.

you know, I think you've refereed know your own struggles for how artifically what a fufu ling life looks like within the religion of technology and within a world of technology. Many people talk about a if A I starts to the place, human labor, where does meaning go? And a lot of our listeners are parents, and they're worried about these big questions of morality and purpose. And given that religion in some sense is a solution to destruction, which we find those kinds of answers, curious what lessons you'd have for them.

So a couple things. Um I want na talk about what i'd call the drama of the gifted technologist and how to address that.

I've really been moved um in my work as a chaplain and then serve observing the the world of tech as well by how many people i've come across, often Young people, students like the one that I work with most directly but you know people of different ages and backgrounds as well, where there's this feeling of tremendous success and having no been rewarded greatly for being deeply innovative. But either a they themselves are struggling emotionally. They're not happy.

Um or are the creations even making other people happy or or both right? Like aros. In some cases it's both that the individual person who is having all the success um is not able to feel happy and neither heard those of us using their amazing products.

And so I read about this idea, the drama of the gifted technologies the drama of the gifted child is a little book um by a great psychologists from the twin century in Alice Miller who essentially says that a lot of our struggles uh have to do with this idea that we're taught that our whole worth as a human being is in what we do and in how excEllent we prove ourselves to be, how outstanding and exceptional we prove ourselves to be. And that anything about just being a human being, just being certainly Normal or average, it's almost a curse upon us IT IT makes us less than nothing IT IT makes us feel worthless. And this is so prominent in the tech world. Um I just can't tell you how often I see IT.

Well, what one of my favour parts of a Alice Miller book was where he talked about the flip sides of grandiosity and depression. The idea that are depression about not being able to to be more, but be being with the Normal part of life, leads us to be gradient s in our narratives of ourselves. And and I, I, I hear you saying that that the text grandiosity of its narrative about what IT will become might be the flip side of feeling not quite enough.

Yeah I mean, I think that that's right, that there's this there's this incredible grandiosity in a lot of silk valley tech that this idea that it's not enough just to be able to produce a chat butt that that one can interact with in the compassionating test, which is, you know, honestly, IT is pretty cool, I grant you that.

But it's this idea that that then has to be presented as the solution capital as to all of our problems, right? And that is going to transform everything. Like I don't think that we really have sufficient evidence for that. I I think when we talk about that, a lot of the conversation about that level of transformation falls me within the category of myth.

Um or you know maybe Better put as religion know, because if I said to you that there was a new religion that was successful recruiting billions of people to spend countless hours devoting themselves to IT for the purpose of transforming the world and that people were really motivated to 点 behind a very specific vision around that， I think you could possibly worry, depending what the the vision was, because you know that religions actually do that all the time. IT actually really does help to view this as a religion, t of a culture, a myth, or or certainly an industry. Because I think we we have real tools for being skeptical of religion, even those of us who would define ourselves religious.

Some of the claims about what air will do are are obviously really graphed right. But it's hard to judge something as distorted just because it's ground, you say. So it's it's really great gna change the world. And so it's easy to try to discount that as as distorted even religious thinking. I don't think that s what you are doing. But because you know is is the fear really that people are getting just Carried away with what it's going to be? Or is the fear also that they may be right and IT might deliver that kind of power, but in a way that we're not prepared to deal with?

I tend to worry that the real problem is that we are so fixated on the grand narrative about the long term future that we are not paying as much attention as we should be to the problems of the present.

Um this stuff is really lousy for the environment is one place to start right? It's um you're talking about data centers that are drinking twenty percent of the water in uh little part of mexico near mexico city, where the farmers are running out of water for their crops in their animals. And so I I think it's both that the A I can actually be causing the problem, but also that is distracting us with this future magic hope of doing the things right now that would improve right now. And I I just honestly think like the urgency is not right now to do the tech. The urgency is to do the work on us.

And just add one little thing here in order for things to go well, right, we need to be able to ordinate uh there is the the joke that we're all arguing about whether hai is conscious when is not even clear that humanity is which is to say that um we are getting results that none of us want no one wants climate change and yet we seem to be as a species incapable of exercising choice against incentives.

And the way we have made hard collective choices in the past has come down to not as much of what we must do, but who we must be and who we must be is informed by the mitts and the stories we all hold to do the writer thing when IT is the harder thing. And that's often come down to religion. And so there is an alternate way, instead of saying just that tech religion bad, but rather there is a new form of an interest, subjective belief of the who we must be to get the futures that we want.

What I really hoping people will take away is this idea that religion must be reformed, not that you IT must be erased. We have tremendous incentive to want to focus on big technological, when, in fact, the real solutions are in in, know, improving our human relationships, right? To build up trust, to learn how to treat one another Better, to learn how to organize ourselves into something that can treat each person with dignity and with compassion.

And I think that brings us full circle, because if you treat religion is one of the original character, logical educations, not not what to think or what to know, but who to be. And how can we be Better together as we developed this more, more powerful technology? That is the guiding question that we all need to keep in the forefront of our minds. So thank you. yeah.

Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. This is A A really powerful conversation for .

the listeners. greg. Abstinence book is technology. How technology became the worlds most powerful religion and why is so desperately need a reformation? You can buy anywhere box are sold. So again, greg, thank you so much. Just to name or I think that I found little chAllenging about this conversation IT felt like a little too dismissive of .

the raw capabilities of what .

the tech does yeah I and so IT is the case that the world will be transformed um in the same way that social media has shifted. What kind of job people have influencers wasn't a thing before. There's A A A true shift in the world and A I is going to be bigger than those shifts. And we have to reckon with that appropriately. I thought your question of where does he go from being grand in the fact that the scope of the technology's grand to candiote is the right question ask is the right distinction to hold .

yeah and I really struggled this when I look at there's so many competing claims from people right now that say, I see you're just being captured by the the negatives like you're just this sort of good negative skeptic c. religious.

The truth is it's really hard to content with what is IT actually going to do and neither be swept away in in the grander, in the grandiosity of IT, nor be swept away in some sort of status quote realism saying, ah, it's all just laugh. And tomorrow will be the same as today. There are mocked valan technologies.

We are making up stories just because IT sells in the public imagination. And then there are people who are genuinely trying to use technology, a tool to improve the lot around IT. And he feels like he feels like just like religion. IT has so much complexity to IT, and you can't label IT as just bad .

or just good. Dance is exactly right. And then I love the point that you had is one of the things a religion does said IT gives people hope something to believe in something that is bigger and Better than themselves and his religion um has been displaced by technology as the world has secular zed human being still need that thing.

And so going to what ills IT is, of course, technology. And then you end up with this other very interesting question, which is, okay, if we can't place our whole blindly and tech, then what right? And I think it's that sitting in the unknown and that discomfort of the or then where do we place hope and goodness that is a the charging problem to solve.

Your undivided attention is produced, the center for humane technology, a nonprofit working to catalyze a humane future. Our senior producer is Julia cut. Josh lash is our researcher and producer, and our executive producer is such a vegan, mixing on this episode by justice dan, original music by ryan and haze holiday, and a special thanks to the whole center for humane technology team for making this pocket possible.

You can find show notes, transcripts and much more at humane tech dot com. And if you like the podcast, we'd be grateful if you could rate IT on apple podcast because IT helps other people find the show. And if you made IT all the way here, thank you for giving us your undivided attention.