Former Google engineer and tech entrepreneur, Anthony Levandowski, in a recent episode of Bloomberg’s AI IRL podcast, said that he is relaunching his artificial intelligence-dedicated church. The controversial Silicon Valley figure and pioneer of self-driving cars first began the church eight years ago while working at Google.
‘Way of the Future’
Levandowski started his church “Way of the Future” (WOTF) in 2015 while working on Google’s self-driving project Waymo but was shut down just a couple of years later.
He also told Bloomberg that the church already has a congregation consisting of “a couple thousand people,” who are trying to build a “spiritual connection” with AI.
Speaking about WOTF, the former Google engineer said, “Here we’re actually creating things that can see everything, be everywhere, know everything, and maybe help us and guide us in a way that normally you would call God.”
“For the last 4 billion years we’ve had organic lifeforms, now, for the first time things are changing and we’re going to have inorganic life forms,” Levandowski told Bloomberg.
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“We don’t know what (these inorganic life forms) are going to be, (but) we’re going to fuse it with all these magical powers, and we want it to give us things,” he added. Levandowski also believes that AI can bring “heaven on Earth.”
During the interview, the former Google engineer spoke about his aim to help gain a better and deeper understanding of AI to allow more people to have a say in how the technology is used.
He went on to describe WOTF as a tool for rural America to help them “understand and participate and shape the public discourse as to how we think technology should be built to improve you.”
The so-called church sought to champion an ethical evolution of AI but since its conception has sparked interest and controversy – like Levandowski himself.
Silicon Valley’s controversial figure
The AI church reportedly went public around the same time when the former Google engineer was embroiled in a legal dispute with the tech giant. Notably, WOTF had been formed while Levandowski was still at Google but he did not speak about it publicly until late 2017.
Levandowski was said to be the central figure of a trade secrets lawsuit between Waymo and Uber for allegedly stealing secrets related to the self-driving tech at Google and giving it to his next employer, the ride-hailing company.
In 2020, he pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from Google which resulted in an 18-month prison sentence. However, less than six months later, he was pardoned by former United States President Donald Trump on the last day of his presidency.
(With inputs from agencies)
