Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality - Hardcover

Geraci, Robert M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195393023 ISBN 13: 9780195393026

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Apocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines or cyberspace and live forever, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea, affecting everything from the world view of online gamers to government research funding and philosophical thought. In Apocalyptic AI, Robert Geraci offers the first serious account of this "cyber-theology" and the people who promote it.

Drawing on interviews with roboticists and AI researchers and with devotees of the online game Second Life, among others, Geraci illuminates the ideas of such advocates of Apocalyptic AI as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil. He reveals that the rhetoric of Apocalyptic AI is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. In both systems, the believer is trapped in a dualistic universe and expects a resolution in which he or she will be translated to a transcendent new world and live forever in a glorified new body. Equally important, Geraci shows how this worldview shapes our culture. Apocalyptic AI has become a powerful force in modern culture. In this superb volume, he shines a light on this belief system, revealing what it is and how it is changing society.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert M. Geraci is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. He was the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation EAGER grant studying meaningful and transcendent experiences in virtual worlds (2011-2014) and was Fulbright-Nehru Senior Researcher at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where he studied the intersection of religion and technology in India's high tech communties (2012-2013). In addition to Apocalyptic AI, he is the author of Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life.

Review:

"Scholars interested in the intersection of popular science and religion will likely find Geraci's work helpful. Portions of the book, especially the chapter on virtual reality and video games, would also be appropriate for the undergraduate classroom."
--Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

"Robert Geraci's thoughtful examination of technology-based quests for transcendence offers a serious look at apocalyptic scenarios that, while remaining for now in the realm of science fiction, nonetheless claim significant cultural influence. I don't know when we will see robots with human-like intelligence, but our longing for them, and what that says about us, is what Geraci's book helps us understand."--David S. Touretzky, Research Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0195393023
• ISBN 13: 9780195393026
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248