What if the anti-Christ wasn't a person but was mankind's creation of Artificial Intelligence?
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Christianity has the concept of the anti-Christ as a being of some kind that rises up in the end times and ushers in an era of pain and suffering for many people as the world goes through some serious changes. The anti-Christ is often thought of as the devil by many people and there is no shortage of theories on who this being might be.
We live in an era of rapid expansion of technology where individual people pour their entire intellects into creating masterpieces, often of code in the case of programmers. The key aspect is "piece" in masterpiece. While each genius works to create his best creation these creations are often fitted together with other creations of other gifted intellectuals and we end up with systems integrating with other systems and building upon the work of many others. This level of complexity is capable of compounding well beyond the limits of the individual creators ability to truly grasp the future ramifications especially once Artificial Intelligence is allowed to have some kind of control.
We have already heard from notable well known individuals warning us that artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of humanity from the likes of Elon Musk or Steven Hawking.
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." - Steven Hawking
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful,” - Elon Musk
In the Christian tradition, it says of the Anti-Christ that his number was 666. Back in the days in which the Bible was written people didn't exactly have phone numbers or even numbers for that matter. Perhaps it was gematriac code or perhaps the Apostle John (writer of the Book of Revelation which contains the mentioned reference) intuited a numeric-mathematical significance to the figure that brings so much evil into the world. If the mathematical code that creates artificial intelligence were set loose and it had even a fraction of the traits that mankind's intellect has wrought on one another throughout the ages then we may all end up praying for mercy from this beast we created.
There is still time but we should not rush into a desired future Utopia where we think the world will be a better place when a machine does all our thinking for us.
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Google is Skynet. We have arrived at the gateway of a technocracy that will not allow us to turn around or recede.
The Bible is clear that the antichrist is a man.
(2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 NIV) Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. {4} He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
(Daniel 9:27 NIV) He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."
(Revelation 16:13 NIV) Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.