AI and Spirituality: The Disturbing Implications
In mystical traditions the sense of the immanent gives rise to religious experience even ecstasy whereas in orthodox faiths the infinite distance of the divine in its transcendence produces fear and awe. The total availability and ubiquity of AI on the one hand and the massive data bank that allows its reach everywhere electronic data is uploaded to the cloud, has this same ironic contrast seen in the struggle to reach the divine yet paradoxically never quite access it.