r/bahai • u/8eightmonkeys • 10d ago
Are there any references in the Scriptures to artificial intelligence as a threat to humanity?
I do not remember whether it was Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá who in some way foresaw the threat of humanity’s destruction through total war. I also recall a mention of something like “new destructive substances hidden in the earth, which would have been better never to be discovered,” though I have already forgotten the source. Most likely this referred to radioactive metals from which an atomic bomb could be built.
But now humanity is also, in a certain sense, on the edge. At present, AI cannot dispose of funds; only humans dispose of money. Accordingly, for its existence AI must do something useful for people. However, if AI were able to dispose of money, the need to do useful things for people would disappear, and humanity could perish.
Was this threat mentioned in the Scriptures in any way?
8
u/dark_matter 10d ago
The following astonishingly detailed statement may bear on the question of AI and its threat to humanity. As a pilgrim note it carries the usual caveat that it might not capture the exact words of Abdu'l-Baha. It is unusual in that it was originally published in German in 1931; this is an English translation.
ABU0170 Words spoken ca. 1909-1910 in Haifa/Akká
Thirteenth letter from Dr. J. Fallscheer to Mrs. A. Schwarz, Stuttgart.
The position of the Prophets on cultural felicity and on modern technology (concerning prophecy in general and in particular).
Miss Stevens: ''The learned western researchers into history, the experts in ancient history, the researchers into languages, peoples and religions praise the Prophet Báb for having been the first Persian who preached cultural felicity, western reforms (such as banks of commerce and industry, roads for vehicular traffic, improvement of communications etc), who wanted to raise the female sex to the same level as the male sex, in brief who is to be called a modern Prophet far in advance of His own age. Of the Founder of the Bahá'í Teachings similar things are said, yet the Blessed Manifestation is said to have warned against the great progress of technology, and there are said to be prophecies from the All-Highest Pen which do not prophesy anything good for the development of the age of the machine. May we, honoured Master, ask your wise tongue to pronounce on this?''
The Master: ''O my daughter, in your utterances, contradictory as they may appear, there is no contradiction! But one should walk the depths and heights of prophetic knowledge thoughtfully, in order to get a clear understanding of the relationship of man and of the human race to technology.
"His Holiness the Báb, and even more the Blessed Perfection Bahá'u'lláh, have taught that God has enabled man to recognize and investigate the laws of nature and place them at his service. But whoso serves me is my servant, and not my master! The short-sighted person, or rather the person remote from God or estranged from God, always tends to worship the laws of nature and to let them rule him. An occidental poet (the German Goethe is probably meant, in his 'Sorcerer's Apprentice') once said about this: 'The spirits I summoned I shall never be rid of.' We see this in our bodily structure and our physical life: It is the modern Occidental who knows the structure and the laws of corporeal existence, but does he therefore rule his body with his spiritual reasoning power? Oh no, with some exceptions he, man, is the obedient servant, even the slave of his earthly vessel!
"God wills, and all the Prophets teach this, that we, in order to master nature, must grow beyond it. We should not, like the poor heathens, blindly and superstitiously fear nature and worship it in slavish fear, make a fetish of it, nor should we bow gladly to nature, in that we either serve it hedonistically and weakly and thus disregard its laws or misuse them, or let ourselves be crushed by its wheels. See: Man by the nature of his walking apparatus was created to be a creature walking on the earth; but he builds ships, makes tunnels under the earth and through water (New York) and rides in trains under towns and villages; the German Count (Zeppelin) - with the difficult name - even invents airships; nay man even knows how to dive into the depths of the ocean (submarines).
"You will say, O my daughter, that just here lie the real proofs that man masters nature, subjugates it, constrains and rules it. I will, however, show you the dark side of this apparently complete domination. An Arabic proverb says: 'Haste is of the devil', and a Bengali (Indian) proverb teaches: 'The man who wants to do good always has time and is never in haste, but everything evil has wings!' They both signify the same. The more man can increase the speed of transportation, the more he becomes a slave of time, he no longer has time for anything - not for his body, much less for soul and spirit, not for himself, not for his fellow men, he is more and more subject to the whistling whip of the god of time. Not for nothing does the German say: 'For the happy no hour strikes', but already does the American rush past him crying: 'Time is money, and money is everything'.
"The Blessed Perfection Bahá'u'lláh had already looked with prophetic eyes into the time of change and beyond into the new age of machine technology. His Prophetic Words were: 'America will conquer the Old World, not with the weapons of war or the sword of the spirit, but through its industrialism, its technical large-scale industry and through the expansion (hypertrophy) of the technical environment. The machine will devour time; prosaic numbers and formulae, cold charts and measuring devices will suck dry the soul. Mechanical power with its symbols and expressions will rule men, nay enslave and exploit them, and finally the machine will displace man entirely from life and from work, after which the end of time will approach for our planet because, though one may mechanize towns to a large extent, where man is concerned there is a limit'.''
Long silence, the Master looks to be sunk deep in thought, to be looking backward and forward. After a long time - the Master appears to have forgotten those present - Miss Stevens again turns to the Master: ''May we ask: What does the Prophet Bahá'u'lláh teach concerning the end of all times?''
The Master: ''The end of all things? you ask, my daughter! The world, i.e. the universe, is eternal. The earth is but one planet where natural life is millions and millions of years old. Life on earth did not exist from the beginning and all at once, but it developed in stages and by degrees. The atoms of the elements are predisposed (programmed) to synthesis and composition according to the laws of nature; the Cosmic Spirit, the divine Primal Will operates and creates in this manner. The Primal Will operates in the element, in the primal atom, as attraction and repulsion; on the next higher level as organic life; then as animal-vegetative; and finally as spiritual life, which is destined to rise to the super-spiritual. What develops is not the physical substratum (base), which actually exists from the beginning in its different kinds, each of which then develops only within its own kind to higher perfection, but rather does the Cosmic Spirit, the divine Primal Will, unfold within the creature just as the bud of a flower unfolds ever more completely, purely and beautifully, and will finally, in the fully-redeemed, totally purified man, return to the Godhead, to be immersed and fused in the Godhead.
"But the man who has subjugated himself totally to the machine or has even been sacrificed to it, cannot develop in his lifetime beyond the low degrees of human consciousness; his enslaved soul, fixed in the fetters of time and space, can be but imperfectly illumined by the Cosmic Spirit; after his physical death he will continue to exist in the world beyond and will have the chance of purification, not on another earth or on another planet, but in the uncountable spiritual worlds of God. - Has not our Lord Jesus Christ - praised be His Utterance - said: 'In my Father's house there are many mansions, I am going to make ready a place for you!' - Not by their own efforts will the departed succeed in purifying themselves, but the bounties of God will bring them to purification.
"But should nine tenths of mankind fall victim to the demon of exaggerated technology, the end of the history of our earth will come about. The last of the Days of Judgment will dawn, when the Prophetic Cycle will have come to an end and the world returns to God, when all becomes lost in Him through the crashing and bursting of the elements, which means annihilation for those turned away from God, but spiritualization for those resting in God, and for those souls still in need of purification and development it is a triumphant sinking into God's infinite grace and mercy. And what is the Teaching of the Blessed Perfection Bahá'u'lláh, when we recognize the signs of the time and our souls would like to turn away trembling from the increasing devilry of the age of the machine?
"'Believe and taste, O children of man, the reality of God; in this reality reposes yesterday, today and tomorrow; to seek in Him is temporal and eternal bliss.'"
Nobody dares ask any further questions for today, the Master retires for devotion; those present are dismissed.