Opinion | Could the Antichrist Be a Machine?

Is Antichrist going to be a person or is Antichrist going to be a machine? Is Antichrist going to be a being that we create, or that comes through the things that we have created? That’s the question. I think people like Peter Thiel are involved in building something which is becoming quite openly evil, I think, becoming quite openly destructive of human flourishing, destructive of nature, destructive of our relationships, destructive in all the ways that we’ve talked about. So I think what’s fascinating with these kind of billionaires who are involved in creating weapon systems and surveillance technology, who are also talking from a Christian perspective — I mean, I find that utterly bizarre. I think that the constant progress of the technological system at the moment, the direction it’s going in, is going to lead to and is already leading to the rise of a being or beings which are very Antichrist-like in their functioning. I mean, the promise of Antichrist in the Christian story is that he or it is a great prophet which imitates Christ. Every religious believer thinks this is the new prophet who’s come to unite a world which is crumbling. That’s the promise that technology is giving us at the moment. That’s the promise that we’re being openly given by the people who are creating these great superhuman intelligences, these great beyond-human minds that they’re trying to build. These things are going to bring us together. These things are going to solve our problem. These things will be rational. These things will overcome our human passions and our destruction. These things will unite us. It’s almost as if the technological system is coalescing. And as I say, the Silicon Valley people talk openly about this. It’s coalescing towards the creation of a being which is seen to be and is promised to be our salvation. And when they start to talk about uploading their minds into the silicon substrate, you’ve got effectively a kind of digital Christian heresy going on. You’ve got Christianity without Christ. We create heaven. We create a place in which we can live eternal lives. And we ultimately create beings which we regard as gods.