Artificial Intelligence and a robot master race is a plot you’d see in the latest sci-fi movie, but are we getting closer to this reality as technology gets more advanced? An artificial intelligence program known as “AlphaZero” made headlines as it recently began showing signs of “human-like” intuition and creativity.
The computer system amazed the world last year when it mastered the game of chess from scratch within just four hours, despite not being programmed how to win. But now, after a year of testing and analysis by chess grandmasters, the machine has developed a new style of play unlike anything ever seen before, suggesting the programme is now improvising like a human. (Yahoo News; DeepMind’s AlphaZero now showing human-like intuition in historical ‘turning point’ for AI)
Thus far, AlphaZero has shown to rival and possibly surpass the world’s best chess machine Stockfish. The main difference between the two is while Stockfish calculates millions of possible moves, AlphaZero learns from previous successes and failures and gains experience, sometimes even sacrificing its pieces for an advantageous play down the line which amazed developers.
It’s got a neural network with millions of different tunable parameters, each learning its own rules of what is good in chess, and when you put them all together you have something that expresses, in quite a brain-like way, our human ability to glance at a position and say ‘ah ha this is the right thing to do’. “My personal belief is that we’ve seen something of turning point where we’re starting to understand that many abilities, like intuition and creativity, that we previously thought were in the domain only of the human mind, are actually accessible to machine intelligence as well. And I think that’s a really exciting moment in history. (Yahoo News; DeepMind’s AlphaZero now showing human-like intuition in historical ‘turning point’ for AI)
Universal Digital Identities
Aside from AI, we also have MasterCard and Microsoft teaming up in an effort to create “digital identities”. The 2 companies believe this is a great situation for our data managing woes, because it will stream-line the process of identifying who we are no matter what you may need to do in life. This might seem like an innovative option in the future but it comes with tremendous security and privacy issues as to who will have access to user information.
What this announcement seems to be describing is a streamlined identification system: a not-too-far-off world where people are identified under a universal protocol that checks in on them at various points during their lives–when they vote, when they get married, etc. It’s the kind of a citizen-check system a totalitarian regime could only dream of. (Fast Company; Mastercard and Microsoft have a frightening plan to create universal “digital identities”)
Countries such as China with their “social credit” system (which I cover here) and India with their fingerprint and eye scanners connecting to their personal info are already putting this type of technology to use. The question isn’t if this will be possible, but rather when it will be implemented.
The Coming One World System
We’re continually seeing efforts for technologies and systems that attempt to monitor every aspect of its citizen’s lives in the name of convenience and security. This type of system may not be bad on its own but in the wrong hands it has the potential to have millions or billions under its mercy. The bible tells us we’re approaching a time known as the tribulation in which a one world global system will be created and eventually be controlled by the antichrist,“And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation” (Revelation 13:7).
Those reading this verse 1,000 years ago would have a hard time understanding how this could be fulfilled. This is true if we go back even 50 years ago. However, now we have technology that makes this very thing possible. We’re already seeing examples of this in places like China where they monitor every aspect of their citizen’s lives and allow them to live freely if they stay aligned to the ideology of the government or it could restrain their basic liberties such as travel and purchasing items if they go against the government. This isn’t conspiracy, it’s a very possible reality that the bible says will in fact come true for those who don’t place their faith in Christ.
Image of The Beast
With the advances in Artificial Intelligence and more sophisticated robotic technology, many Christians have been speculating if the “image of the beast” mentioned in Revelation 13:15 could be a highly advanced robot with AI that can speak and kill those that don’t worship it, He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (Revelation 13:15).
As crazy as this may sound at first, we’re starting to see a possibility for this. In a recent article by Forbes titled, Get Ready. 2019 Predictions About Artificial Intelligence That Will Make Your Head Spin, they touch on a technology that has been in the works since 2014 known as Personal AI Avatars or PAI for short.
We believe that every person in the world will soon have a PAI, an intelligent avatar which looks, talks, behaves like its human counterpart, and self-evolves through interaction. (Forbes; Get Ready. 2019 Predictions About Artificial Intelligence That Will Make Your Head Spin)
Revelation 13:14-15 tells us there will come a time when an image of some sort will be made, given “life” and be able to speak and exercise power to such a degree that it can kill people. With the current technology we have, we can see how this could possibly be a AI robot or program that resembles the antichrist in likeness and has control over a global system already put in place that it can tap into to identify, find, and kill those who don’t worship it. Before this can be fulfilled, I believe there will be a global surveillance network put into place which we can already see precursors to.
Sources
- Mastercard and Microsoft have a frightening plan to create universal “digital identities” (December 4th, 2018) – Fast Company
- DeepMind’s AlphaZero now showing human-like intuition in historical ‘turning point’ for AI (December 6th, 2018) – Yahoo News
- Get Ready. 2019 Predictions About Artificial Intelligence That Will Make Your Head Spin (December 6th, 2018) – Forbes
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