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Posted by teleforce 10/28/2025

An ex-Intel CEO's mission to build a Christian AI: Hasten the return of Christ(www.theguardian.com)
45 points | 38 comments
thhoooowww0101 10/29/2025|
I don't understand two things:

1. Why do some humans want to "hasten the coming of Christ’s return"?

2. Why do some humans think that an all powerful God needs their help to do what he wants to do?

ntkhan 10/29/2025||
1. This is usually linked to dispensationalist theology which results in the rapture of the faithful in Christ. 2. Very few do. Most think God allows His creatures to participate in His plans and is pleased when do so in a virtuous way.
SpicyLemonZest 10/29/2025||
The Bible, which Christians believe to be divinely inspired or even divinely authored, instructs humans to do this in 2 Peter 3:12.
pohuing 10/29/2025||
How does it do that? It just says to keep calm and carry on because hecklers will not understand that God wants everyone to have a chance. Or am I missing context, it's been a couple of years since I've been in church(and a reformed protestant one at that)
SpicyLemonZest 10/29/2025||
A number of translations specifically say "hastening the coming of the day of God" (https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Peter%203%3A12). You may have one of the ones that doesn't; there's an underlying dispute about the meaning of the Greek verb σπεύδω that I'm not qualified to weigh in on.
pohuing 10/29/2025||
Mine indeed does not contain a similar phrase, it says pretty much the opposite. I guess Luther wasn't interested in the end days much.

But then if the first flood came after excessive sin, is the way to hasten the arrival of the end times another time of sin? That explains a lot ig

danans 10/29/2025||
In his commentary on Gen AI, Yuval Hariri points out that the initial type of publication that proliferated after the printing press was not scientific, but instead witch hunting manuals.

Perhaps Intel's ex CEO isn't attempting to incite oppression of non-Christians through AI, but his references to bringing about Christian Judgement Day as his main goal suggest exactly that.

After all, why would God need his help through technology (whether swords, ships, or AI) to hasten the second coming?

quantified 10/29/2025|
It is just as likely that this is to help humans, especially those who control or profit from the AI. The faithful and the gullible will see the output from hidden weights as being the word of god. When you look at those who bring this word to wide audiences today, you see a lot of grifters, not to mention predators.
shaggie76 10/29/2025||
My first thought was this blog article I saw on HN a while back:

https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/should-we-use-llms-for-ch...

He argued, persuasively I thought, that "this is an area where truthfulness is of paramount importance" and consequently would be extremely ill-suited to AI.

giraffe_lady 10/29/2025||
That's such a good article. I think because I didn't need convincing on this I didn't seriously evaluate its argument the first time around but like you said it is quite solid. Thanks for bringing it back into the conversation it's a really good read along with this one.
eviks 10/29/2025||
But this is not an area where truthfulness is remotely important, let alone paramount, so well suited?
oblio 10/29/2025||
> Belief in Doomsday Happening in Their Lifetime

> There is no single consensus figure, as results vary by how the question is phrased (e.g., "apocalypse" vs. "second coming").

> Belief in "End Times" (General): 39% of U.S. adults (or 2-in-5) believe that humanity is "living in the end times," according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey.

> Belief in a Lifetime Apocalypse:

> 29% of U.S. adults think an "apocalyptic disaster" is likely to occur in their lifetime, according to a 2020 YouGov poll.

> 10% of all Americans (and 21% of evangelical Protestants) believe the second coming of Jesus will "definitely or probably occur during their lifetime" (2022 Pew Research).

I'm not an American but there are some statistics about the US that freak me out - because the US has huge global reach and impact, for better or - these days - for worse.

tstrimple 10/29/2025|
As an American, I've survived numerous religious apocalypses by now. You'd think believers might start to get a clue after a few anti-climatic apocalypses. But no. Fervent as ever.
aquir 10/29/2025||
Humanity will get to the next level when we leave all organised religions behind. Faith is something that is only between you and the entity you believe in. Organised religions are just another face of politics.
CamperBob2 10/29/2025||
Topical: https://hex.ooo/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.html

    “Your Mark V Computer can carry out any routine 
    mathematical operation involving up to ten digits. 
    However, for our work we are interested in letters, 
    not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output 
    circuits, the machine will be printing words, not 
    columns of figures.”
pixelready 10/29/2025||
Which Christ is he trying to summon? Actual man-of-the-people Jesus from the bible, or the corrupted American-style supply-side Jesus of the prosperity gospel?

https://imgur.com/gallery/gospel-of-supply-side-jesus-bCqRp

krapp 10/30/2025|
Obviously not the former. That guy wanted his followers to give their wealth and possessions to the poor, feed the hungry, care for the sick and elderly, forgive debts and treat foreigners and aliens with respect and dignity. To practice empathy of all things. Like some kind of beta male Marxist soyboy cuck.
wnscooke 11/2/2025||
After reading the article, I think more likely it is Matthew 24:14 which explains the desire to "hasten the coming of Christ’s return". The verses says, in the NIV, _14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come._ I suppose he is equating "improve the quality of life of every human on the planet" with them hearing the Gospel.
scrubs 10/29/2025||
This is hilarious ... you know you're lost when religion (one of the most protected institutions in the US constitution) pursues AI/tech to advance its message. Sticking with the Christian theme I predict that well before the 2nd coming God will send a prophet to the Christian world who's message will essentially be: What are you clowns doing? The fundamentals require faith, then works consistent with that faith. And that's done in the real world of person v. person. Prophets are God's corrective action.
quantified 10/29/2025|
Ask the AI for all the falsehoods and contradictions. Ask it how you can tell a false prophet from a real one. This Christianity stuff has poetry in it but the religion and the texts are far apart. Exactly which laws of the Old Testament were voided? Or must Christians abide by them all? Was the Tower of Babel's destruction just a fleeting tantrum? Who did Cain marry if there were no other women? How did Noah get all the scorpions and biting insects? Thanks for the bedbugs and typhoid, dude. Generally an incoherent scheme.
rightbyte 10/29/2025||
> Who did Cain marry if there were no other women?

Like, stuff like that doesn't matter. It is not the point of the story. I don't think the oral tradition cared about plot holes at all.

quantified 10/29/2025|||
If the religion is just some fallible oral tradition, it is no better than an institutionalized TV show. Its claims for humanity are far too important for that.

Remember, the Gospels weren't written contemporaneously. Only after something like 4-5 generations. And when have we heard of people changing or faking history to suit their own ends?

The Judeo-Christian god is a nacissistic, somewhat sadistic mob boss. Way too human.

ntkhan 10/30/2025||
4-5 generations is a stretch, though it depends on what you mean by generation. Most New Testament Scholars including atheists agree that the New Testament was written while the some of the 12 apostles were still alive.

For example, agnostic atheist Dr. Bart Ehrman (Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary) states "Critical scholars are widely agreed that the earliest Gospel was Mark, written around 70 c.e.; that Matthew and Luke were written some years later, say, around 80–85 c.e.; and that John was the last Gospel, written around 90–95 c.e."

The historical record also has the disciples (St. Clement, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius) of the apostles quoting the Gospels or referring to the letters of the apostles shortly after those dates ~90-108 AD depending on who you ask.

Regarding "faking history to suit their own ends", it is hard to imagine what gain the early Christians got by faking history. Some of these people were tortured, crucified, and fed to wild beasts by members of the Roman government because they were making these claims. Not exactly a racket.

quantified 10/30/2025||
Thank you for the detail. I had a more loose understanding of "about 100 years" after. If a generation is 20 years (at that point in history), that would be 5 generations. 25 years per, 4 generations.

The fact that many details of his actions are shared with other legends/traditions sure makes it look like he existed as a person and had lots of stories attributed to him.

The Councils of Nicea and Trent could not have been free of politics.

Those who were told falsehoods and believed them might well hold firm. Let's be real, evidence for the theology around the stories is lacking. This god does not show any influence of existence for a very long time. It's just people doing what people do.

ntkhan 10/30/2025||
You're welcome. The details shared with many other legends/traditions claim is also usually incorrect, particularly "god x was also crucified, rose from the dead, born of a virgin, had twelve dsiciples" etc. Usually these types of claims can be tied back to very specific films/books etc. For example the film 'Zeitgeist' makes wild assertions about Jesus & Horus sharing key details which have been debunked many times over. This is so common that there is a popular YouTube video that satirizes the concept called 'Horus Ruins Christmas' by LutheranSatire.

I agree, no Church council was free of politics. Not an issue for me though: the Church's stated mission is to teach the nations to obey all that God commanded. (Mat 28:19) That sort of mission is going to get political one way or another.

I don't find the evidence for the theology to be lacking at all: the eucharistic miracles in Tixla, Mexico and Legnica, Poland happened this century. There was also the miracle of the sun at Fatima. Daniel 2 was written hundred of years before Christianity and predicts that the Roman Empire would be absorbed by the kingdom of God. That same kingdom which would start small and slowly cover the earth: this fits basically exactly with the transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian state and now Christianity covers the globe. That's just one of many fulfilled prophecies. I don't see how a naturalistic explanation is adequate for repeated knowledge of the future over the course of hundreds of years or the repeated eyewitness testimony of people seeing these miracles.

quantified 10/31/2025||
Daniel 2 is totally vague. Could be describing many situations.

Miracle in Poland: let's see the peer-reviewed results. Same for Mexico. Not surprising that the reported Mexican blood type would be the same as found on the shroud of Turin, which is clearly a fake from the image.

[https://www.richardhanania.com/p/fatima-and-the-sample-size-...]

Jesus said he would return before his disciples died. Did that prophecy come true?

If the book is full of verifiable falsehoods, how do you decide which things aren't false?

Coffeewine 10/29/2025||||
Of course it doesn’t. But there is a difference between treating the story as an oral tradition and the explicit and unerring word of god.
CamperBob2 10/29/2025|||
It should certainly matter to fundamentalists, who have an outsized influence in politics. They regularly pick the most questionable translations of the most vague and obscure verses and ram them down everyone else's throats.

It doesn't matter to them, but it should.

8note 10/29/2025||
why didnt noah talk about how much more dangerous the bugs and animals in austrialia are? or say he put all the dangerous animals there? a bit of warning woulda been nice
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