COMMITTED to train men and women
to have minds for the Lord Jesus,
hearts for the truth, and
hands that are skilled to the task.

03.02.2022 – ROBOTICS – Part Two | Lesson 5

2 Timothy 3:1-5
Genesis 6:5-8
2 Timothy 3:5

Douglas Groothuis warned the evangelical church in 1986 in his book “Unmasking the New Age”
“A new world view is the offing; a revolution in consciousness beckons.
All is one – both good and evil. We are all god – and our first-graders should know it. The mind controls all – if we only use it. These are ideas – potent ideas – that have consequences for the whole of life.
The whole society must be brought into harmony with the One as the New Consciousness produces the New Age. But if the transformation is to be complete, it must permeate and overtake the Western mindset. This means nothing less than the infiltration and revision of the major intellectual disciplines as well as the common world view of the person on the street. The One must move from the avant-garde fringe to the very heart and mind of society.”

Professor Philip C. Bom of Regent University describes that Oneness as COMMONISM;
“a political religion which creates and evaluates standards and goals in line with the principle that man governs the universe. The device and doctrine of COMMONISM is a new ideological age of global spiritual politics; the building of a whole new man for a whole new world.”  “The coming century of Commonism”

Noah Harari “Homo Deus”
“It is customary to portray the history of modernity as a struggle between science and religion. In theory, both science and religion are interested above all in the truth, and because each upholds a different truth, they are doomed to clash. In fact, neither science nor religion cares that much about the truth, hence they can easily compromise, coexist and even cooperate.
Religion is interested above all in order. It aims to create and maintain a social structure, Science is interested above all in power. Through research, it aims to acquire the power to cure diseases, fight wars and produce food. As individuals, scientists and priests may give immense importance to the truth; but as collective institutions, science and religion prefer order and power over truthThey therefore make good bedfellows. The uncompromising quest for truth is a SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, which can seldom remain within the confines of either religious or scientific establishments.It would accordingly be far more accurate to view modern history as a process of formulating a DEAL BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ONE PARTICULAR RELIGION – NAMELY HUMANISM.
Modern society believes in humanist dogmas, and uses science not in order to question these dogmas, but rather in order TO IMPLEMENT them. In the twenty first century the humanist dogmas are unlikely to be replaced by pure scientific theories. However, the covenant linking science and humanism may well crumble and give way to a very different kind of deal, between science and some new post-humanist religion.”
Modern culture rejects this belief in a great cosmic plan. We are not actors in any larger-than-life drama. Life has no script, no play-wright, no director, no producer – and no meaning. To the best of our scientific understanding, the universe is a blind and purposeless process, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. Since there is no script, and since humans fulfill no role in any great drama, terrible things might befall us and no power will come to save us or give meaning to our suffering. There won’t be a happy ending, or a bad ending, or any ending at all. Things just happen, one after the other. The modern world does not believe in purpose, only in cause. We can do anything we want – provide we can find a way. We are constrained by nothing except our own ignorance. Plagues and droughts have no cosmic meaning – but we can eradicate them. Wars are not a necessary evil on the way to a better future – but we can make peace. No paradise awaits us after death – but we can create paradise here on earth and live in it for ever, if we just manage to overcome some technical difficulties. One day our knowledge will be so vast and our technology so advanced that we shall distil the elixir of eternal youth, the elixir of true happiness, and any other drug we might possibly desire – and NO GOD WILL STOP US.
The modern deal thus offers humans an enormous temptation, coupled with a colossal threat. OMNIPOTENCE IS IN FRONT OF US, ALMOST WITHIN OUR REACH. On the practical level modern life consists of a constant pursuit of power within a universe devoid of meaning. Modern culture is the most powerful in history, and it is ceaselessly researching, inventing, discovering and growing. At the same time, it is plagued by more existential angst than any previous culture.”
George Orwell from “1984”
“We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing…….The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”

In 2018 AI expert Dave Gershgorn published a 100 page report entitled: “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence, for both good and evil”

Digital AI

  • Automated phishing, or creating fake emails, websites, and links to steal information.
  • Faster hacking, through the automated discover of vulnerabilities in software.
  • Fooling AI systems, by taking advantage of the flaws in how AI sees the world.

Physical AI

  • Automating terrorism, by using commercial drones or autonomous vehicles as weapons.
  • Robot swarms, enabled by many autonomous robots trying to achieve the same goal.
  • Remote attacks, since autonomous robots wouldn’t need to be controlled within any set distance.

 Political AI

  • Propaganda, through easily-generated fake images and video.
  • Automatic dissent removal, by automatically finding and removing text or images.
  • Personalized persuasion, taking advantage of publicly available information to target someone’s opinions.

Transhumanist Manifesto
The Transhumanist Manifesto challenges the issue of human aging and the finality of death by advocating three conditions. These conditions assert that aging is a disease; augmentation and enhancement to the human body and brain are essential for survival, and that human life is not restricted to any one form or environment. Understanding these conditions are core to the philosophy and worldview of transhumanism[i] and advocate for the ethical use of technology and evidence-based science to intervene and effectively mitigate aging and to retreat from genetic liability by advancing genetic liberty. These actions must be reached with a mindful, rational approach. Aging is a disease.
The aim is to mitigate aging and amend human lifespans beyond the maximum time frame as a biological state where disease affects everyone to varying degrees, ultimately programed for death. New technologies and advances in science, along with social reforms on aging, will build a positive outlook and practical conviction for the future.

Francis Fukuyama, the renowned American political philosopher writes:
“The human race, after all, is a pretty sorry mess, with our stubborn diseases, physical limitations, and short lives. Throw in humanity’s jealousies, violence, and constant anxieties, and the transhumanist project begins to look downright reasonable. If it were technologically possible, why wouldn’t we want to transcend our current species? However, the seeming reasonableness of the project, particularly when considered in small increments, is part of its danger. Society is unlikely to fall suddenly under the spell of the transhumanist worldview. But it is very possible that we will nibble at biotechnology’s tempting offerings without realizing that they come at a frightful moral cost. Transhumanism’s advocates think they understand what constitutes a good human being and they are happy to leave behind the limited, mortal, natural beings they see around them in favor of something better.”  www.foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/23/transhumanism

Noah Harari “Homo Deus”
“For the foreseeable future, the cyborg enhancements promising to make us smarter, faster, stronger, and closer to immortal will be affordable only to the very wealthy. Those unable to afford the new miracle treatments – the vast majority of people, will be beside themselves with rage. Throughout history, the poor and oppressed comforted themselves with the thought that at least death is even-handed – that the rich and powerful will also die. The poor will not be comfortable with the thought that they had to die, while the rich will remain young and beautiful forever.”

 Erich Fromm
“The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.”

 Marvin Minsky, 1995
“Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children.”