Principalities, powers and the Machine

What do you worship?

Photo: RR Miller Photography Used with permission.

Author’s note: The opening section of this piece is a fictionalized account. It is NOT an actual news story. Please see additional note and disclaimer below this section.

Second AI Safety Summit shuts down over fears of rioting

Menlo Park, USA, 19:23-41

For the second time within six months, the AI Safety Summit convened today, this time in Menlo Park in the heart of Silicon Valley, reprising their two-day meeting held in Bletchley Park, UK in November of last year.

Today’s event was convened six months ahead of its originally scheduled date, due to growing concerns about AI regulation, as well as public pushback as to the legitimacy of the AI industry.

Delegates from nearly 30 governments around the world, as well as the heads of Silicon Valley artificial intelligence companies, gathered at the elegant Stanford Park Hotel event center near San Jose, California. Representatives of the U.S. and Chinese governments, Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were again among the attendees.

In a surprising turn of events from the previous summit, during Altman’s opening remarks in the event’s plenary session, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his feet, shouting Altman down while referencing their ongoing legal woes. Musk has sued OpenAI, accusing the company of failing to build “responsible” AI.

Altman struggled to regain control of the meeting but eventually silenced Musk, turning the accusation back onto AI detractors.

“You know all of us in this industry receive a good income from this business, and expect to receive far more,” Altman said. “However, those who argue for resistance against AI and what they term the “Machine” have convinced and led astray many people worldwide, including my friend Elon here.

“These AI detractors say that human-made intelligences are not intelligences at all. Not only that, but they claim AI is dangerous. Because of this, there is a threat not only that our industry will lose its good name, but also that all of Silicon Valley will be discredited—even digital technology itself, which is the backbone of worldwide trade. Our economy could be robbed of its total dominance.”

Hearing this, the gathering hall erupted in disarray as attendees began to shout and argue, some demanding more regulation, some less. Many accused US-based AI companies of attempting to retain their AI dominance by calling for heavy worldwide regulation.

At one point, a lone voice rang out above the fray: “Silicon Valley technology rules!” What ensued was an unreal scene, as heads of artificial intelligence corporations, ministers and reporters alike began shouting: “Silicon Valley technology rules!” in unison for 15 minutes straight.

Even Musk appeared to have a change of heart, sending out on X: “Silicon Valley technology ROCKS! Long live responsible AI!” The message was picked up by AI engineers and techbros alike, and soon both the X universe—and the meeting hall—were in an uproar. Some shouted criticisms and threats at those critical of AI and what these detractors term “the Machine,” with individuals like digital minimalist Cal Newport and author Paul Kingsnorth among several names mentioned.

Some individuals took it upon themselves to seize two reporters known to be critical of AI dominance and drag them onto the stage, where they both were shouted to silence and prevented from speaking. On hearing that his name had been referenced, Paul Kingsnorth, who happened to be in San Jose for a separate speaking engagement, sought permission to appear before the gathering to better clarify his message. Kingsnorth later revealed that a UK government leader in attendance had sent a personal message warning him not to venture anywhere near the event out of fears for his safety.

At the Menlo Park gathering, the assembly remained in confusion. Some continued to demand unfettered support for AI, some banged tables and called for immediate government regulation. Staff at the posh conference venue expressed concern that the meeting hall would be damaged and alerted local police. Multiple units arrived and officers could be seen discussing the tense situation with Stanford Park staff outside the venue windows.

After about 30 minutes of this uproar, Canadian “godfather” of AI, Yoshua Bengio says he “Didn’t even know why we were there anymore. This should have all been settled back in November. We’ve been calling on governments to put immediate AI regulations into place.”

Some pushed Bengio to the front to speak, but when other attendees realized who he was and his pro-regulation stance, they clamored in unison for nearly an hour: “Silicon Valley technology rocks!” These words and videos of the moment were reposted on X more than six million times, with Musk’s post alone gaining nine million likes. The words “Silicon Valley technology rocks” comprised 82 percent of all the messages posted on X within this two-hour period.

Finally, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, convener of the original AI Safety Summit, took to the stage and was able to quiet the crowd:

“All the world knows that Silicon Valley is the guardian of technology and AI, which will soon liberate the world from drudgery,” he said. “Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, we need to be quiet and not do anything rash. These AI detractors you accuse have not robbed anyone or libeled our good colleagues. If Altman, Musk or any other CEO has a grievance against anyone, the courts are open and there are barristers and due legal process.

“If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in court. As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today’s events. In that case, we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” With these words, he dismissed the entire AI Safety Summit for the rest of the day.

Whether the Summit will resume tomorrow remains in question.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a number of government officials said they believe today’s incidents may have in fact been a coordinated event to further raise the profile of the power of AI and promote its worldwide adoption in a strategy known as “criti-hype.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated throughout the day.

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Author’s note: The above creation is NOT a real news story. It is a hypothetical, imagined scenario for illustrative purposes only. Please treat it as such.

The fact that I even feel a need to add the above disclaimer, in addition to the one at the opening of the article, shows the extent to which a scenario like the one imagined above is plausible.

Great is Artemis of the Ephesians

For anyone who has not yet understood what I’ve done here, I’ve taken a story from the Book of Acts¹ and transposed it to our modern times, subbing in modern characters, locations and events. Given our current culture of outrage, it transposes amazingly well. Humanity hasn’t changed much over the last 2,000 years.

Why have I bothered to do this—at the risk of either somebody, somewhere mistaking it for a real news story, or of potentially offending the real-life characters, like

Paul Kingsnorth

, who I have let stand in for a portion of the role of Paul the apostle in this passage?²

I’ve done it because the very ability of this story to be so easily lifted and set into the current day demonstrates the point of this post: Anything that is deemed “too big to fail” in our modern society is likely a principality or power.

Let me explain.

What caught my attention in reading the Acts passage was the line: “He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.”

In my previous piece, I hinted in a footnote that human creations to which we attribute super-human qualities—here referencing super AIs—are what we used to call idols.³ I’m drawing a parallel from this thought to the uproar in Ephesus back in the first century AD. The apostle Paul’s teaching challenged the belief that the idols of the city of Ephesus were great powers, particularly that of the idol Artemis. We’re told that silversmith and idol-maker Demetrius understood Paul to mean that idols were not real deities at all.

The city fell into an uproar over Paul’s teaching, in part because the Ephesians were defending the power of a so-called goddess to affect change in their lives. But, more importantly, the craftsmen who made the idols realized they were going to lose their livelihoods if people turned away from worshipping Artemis. They cloaked their outrage in the guise that Paul was disrespecting their “great goddess” Artemis. But was disrespect for the goddess the biggest issue? No, for in the passage, it appears this outrage was financially motivated.

Too big to fail

In fact, these craftsmen realized that the goddess of their city was simply “too big to fail.” Much of the city took their livelihood from it. Artemis worship was central to the economic life of the region, and the month-long celebration dedicated to her—combined with a procession in her honor that drew in large crowds from around the region—brought in much income. So, the workmen, the city officials and the entire city came together to protect ‘their way of life’.

Sound familiar?

Following the thought of a diverse company of theologians,⁴ I am suggesting that whatever we see today as “too big to fail” is likely a principality or power. (Think the banking system during the 2008 financial crisis, or Wall Street itself.) Furthermore, these principalities and powers are often our modern-day idols.

So, in the fictional example above, the issue wasn’t whether so-called AI detractors might have had any actual effect on the adoption of AI or the regulation of its development. The issue that caused the uproar was that anyone might dare to challenge the supremacy of digital technology and the economy it creates. Cleverly, (and this is an actual strategy with AI today) the above fictitious attendees of the fictitious second AI Safety Summit were able—like the silversmiths of ancient Ephesus—to turn their protest into a way of drawing worldwide attention to the so-called greatness (too-big-to-fail-ness) of their “god.”

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So, what are principalities and powers anyway?  

We are told they are what is behind all of the struggle within our world. How’s that for potent? We don’t struggle against other human beings. We struggle against powers and spiritual forces.⁵

Furthermore, these forces were made by God,⁶ but have gotten out of hand because humans have started worshipping them instead of God. More on that in a minute.

Walter Wink offers one take on them:

“ ‘Principalities and powers’ are the inner and outer aspects of any given manifestation of power. As the inner aspect, they are the spirituality of institutions, the ‘within’ of corporate structures and systems, the inner essence of outer organizations of power. As the outer aspect, they are political systems, appointed officials, the ‘chair’ of an organization, laws—in short, all the tangible manifestations which power takes.

“This hypothesis… makes sense of the fluid way the New Testament writers and their contemporaries spoke of the Powers: now as if they were these centurions or that priestly hierarchy, and then, with no warning, as if they were some kind of spiritual entities in the heavenly places.”⁷

So yes, they are sometimes demonic, but not always. Walter Wink again: “Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structural.”⁸

Furthermore, I would add that principalities and powers are what result whenever a society, group or nation collectively gives itself over to worship something. It seems that as humans worship these God-made principalities and powers, they spiritually empower them.

What do you worship?

I know that in our post-Enlightenment society, we don’t believe we worship anything. We think we’re beyond that. Worship is for the superstitious and ignorant—the unsophisticated.

But we’re wrong. “Everybody worships something,” author David Foster Wallace once said, with Bob Dylan chiming in, “Gotta serve somebody.” Whether we realize it or not, we’re all worshipping something.

Still don’t believe you worship anything? Here’s a checklist of what it means to worship. Try it out with something as simple as your smart phone, laptop or other tech.

When we worship something, we:

• Give it our time. (How much time do you spend on it?)

• Give it our money. (How much money are you willing to spend for it, and is that amount within measure for the benefits it gives in return?)

• Give it our focus. (How often do you find your mind turning towards it?)

• Give it our adoration. (Do you feel an emotional draw to it, perhaps because it represents relationships or perhaps your standing in others’ eyes? Think your social media or gaming status.)

• Give it our praise. (Have you “sung your tech’s praises” to others?)

• Give it our talent. (Do you give your intellectual property away via social media or AI learning?)

• Sacrifice other things for it. (Have relationships and family time been damaged by it?)

• Surrender to its ‘will’. (Do you surrender to the intent of its developers, for example, allowing tech to become addictive?)

• Give it our allegiance. (Do you “follow” its usage prompts or buy its advertising suggestions?)

• Give it our awe or fear. (What are you afraid you would miss out on if you didn’t have it?)

• Give it our service. (How much of your life is spent for technology?)

• Give it our lives. (This is what transhumanism hopes to literally do. But perhaps there is a metaphoric sense in which our lives are ‘given over’ to our tech.)

It’s worth thinking about what you’re really doing when you “use” your technology. Are you actually worshipping?

So, to be clear, the “Machine” is a way that we talk about the powerful system—or force—behind our technology. It’s a way to talk about the principality or power of our technology: the system it has created that is too big to fail. I don’t conflate the Machine with super AIs or transhumanism. These are just extreme examples of the influence the principality or power of the Machine can or may wield.

‘Isms’ are what we worship

In the same way, these principalities or idols we worship are often “isms”: nearly any word ending in “ism” you can think of, from political theories to economic theories to religion itself. Anything we adhere to that, when challenged, we will rush to defend, is a clue that we are under the influence of a principality.

In other words, the increase of incivility in our public discourse and the decrease in actual healthy debate and discussion is due to the fact that, as a society, we are increasingly looking to our ideas and our creations as our saviors. What is one clue to know that someone is under the influence of a delusion? They will attack others if their delusion is challenged. All you have to do is to go on any social media platform and observe people attacking each other to defend their pet ideas, conspiracies or delusions to know what our principalities and powers are today.

Sometimes, it’s our own intellect we worship, as in intellectualism. Sometimes it’s ourselves, as in narcissism. Sometimes it’s what we can prove, as in scientific materialism. The idea that humans can escape the confines of the body and escape the suffering of the world, as in transhumanism. You get the idea. “Isms” are often what we worship.

So when I talk about what is “behind” the Machine, or behind the creation of AI, this is what I’m talking about. What is the force that we are worshipping that drives humanity to create what we create? How are we participating in collectively empowering the Machine through our dedication to it?

In a society that collectively affirms the belief that there is nothing “beyond,” nothing transcendent, nothing supernatural, we still long for transcendence. We want to create something powerful that will save or liberate us. Therefore, a neo-gnosticism becomes the principality behind our technological creations.

Why is it important to know this?

Because you become like what you worship.

Intuitively and experientially, I believe we all know this. This reality is encapsulated in our phrase “garbage in, garbage out” or GIGO. What you focus on, you will start to reflect. What you expose yourself to, you will start to become like. What you concentrate on, you empower in your own life. For example, when we continually focus on dark or fearful thoughts, we can become depressed.

We become what we behold

This reality is encapsulated in the line, “We become what we behold,” a phrase often attributed to the poet William Blake. Indeed, in his 1794 The Book of Urizen, Blake wrote, “… He became what he beheld….”

But it is likely that Blake crafted this pithy phrase from the raw materials of the scripture that speaks of how, when we behold (look intently at, contemplate, gaze upon) God’s glory, we are transformed into the same image.⁹

This principle is the basis for the dehumanizing nature of the Machine. Our society, and we ourselves, become increasingly dehumanized (machine-like) as we focus on the Machine, on our technology, and on a world that we believe can only be “fixed” by our technological efforts. In so many ways—alienation from others, self and Creation—we become less fully human, less able to reflect what it means to be in the image and likeness of the God who took on our flesh and humanity.

So AI is just the most recent incarnation of the influence of the principality or power many call the Machine.

This is why AI criti-hype is actually playing into the power of the Machine. It may be negative attention—but we’re still giving it our attention. If we are afraid of something, we are in fact giving it our worship. Our awe. Our fear. This is why scripture references the “fear of God,” as part of what it means to worship Him.¹⁰ In this case, however, our fear of God is a healthy fear—the kind of awe or respect you have for someone more potent than yourself, but who is also wholly loving and good.

However, with AI, the fear is unhealthy. We’re being scared into worshipping AI. Don’t believe me? How many times in the last years have you heard the sentiment, “If you don’t begin to use AI, you’ll fall behind in your business. Your business will fail.”? Plenty, I bet.

One book from 2017¹¹ even suggests that we should be figuring out now how to structure our businesses for the reality of our goods and services becoming one-tenth of their current price, because that is what AI is going to do to global pricing. This may, or may not, be true. The point is, are you going to be scared into complying? Remember, the best marketing technique is fear.

One point I want to make within this series is that the Machine is a principality or power. Understanding that, we have to decide: Are we going to pay homage to it, or are we going to choose trust in Someone bigger? The choice is going to get increasingly clear, I’m afraid. The more we’re embedded in the Machine, the harder it will be to extract ourselves from it.

But this is nothing new. We’re always being presented with this same choice in our lives. Will you be afraid and give in to the world’s ways, or will you trust God?¹²

1. Bible, Acts 19:23-41.

2. There were other good writers on the Machine whose names I could have used—I liked the fact that Kingsnorth’s first name is also Paul.

3. Bible, Habakkuk 2:18-19.

4. Such as C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Marva Dawn, Walter Wink, Richard Rohr and Darrell Johnson.

5. Bible, Ephesians 6:12.

6. Bible, Colossians 1:16-17.

7. Walter Wink, Introduction to Naming the Powers.

8. Walter Wink, Naming the Powers.

9. Bible, 2 Corinthians 3:18.

10. Jesus himself affirms this by using “worship” as an alternate word for “fear” when quoting from Deuteronomy 6:13 in Matthew 4:10.

11. What to Do When Machines Do Everything, Frank, Roehrig and Pring, pp. 159-160.

12. Bible, Joshua 24:14-15

Your voice is needed, and we’d love to hear it in the comments below. However, if you choose to abandon the voice of love in your comments, remember that you are abandoning all of your beneficial power.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, alone having the ability to create change for the better. Indeed, it is the only force that ever has.