{"id":454081,"date":"2021-02-20T01:50:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T06:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/uncategorized\/artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down.php"},"modified":"2021-02-20T01:50:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T06:50:10","slug":"artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down.php","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence-Worshipping Church Officially Shuts Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-assets.futurism.com\/2021\/02\/wotf-300x158.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"Anthony Levandowski decided to shut down the artificial intelligence-focused church he started and donated its funds to the NAACP.\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div><h2>Closed Doors<\/h2><p>Remember that artificial intelligence-worshipping church, the Way of the Future?<\/p><p>Well, first of all: <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/way-future-new-church-worships-ai-god\">Yes, that existed<\/a>. But secondly, founder Anthony Levandowski <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2021\/02\/18\/anthony-levandowski-closes-his-church-of-ai\/?guccounter=1\">told <em>TechCrunch<\/em><\/a> this week that he has now decided to dissolve the church and donate all of its funds &mdash; just over $175,000 &mdash; to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. Levandowski still supports the church&rsquo;s mission to responsibly develop and support artificial general intelligence, but he said he was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to do something with a more immediate impact.<\/p><p>&ldquo;I wanted to donate to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund because it&rsquo;s doing really important work in criminal justice reform and I know the money will be put to good use,&rdquo; Levandowski told <em>TechCrunch<\/em>.<\/p><h2>Wild Ride<\/h2><p>Aside from his bizarre church, which never had a physical location, rituals, or gatherings, you may remember Levandowski from his legal battles over stolen trade secrets within the self-driving car industry.<\/p><p>Levandowski founded the<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>Way of the Future when he was working at Google. He later left to form his own startup,&nbsp;which got<a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/an-autonomous-future-uber-just-bought-self-driving-cargo-truck-startup-otto\"> bought by Uber<\/a> &mdash; only to be sued by Google&rsquo;s self-driving vehicle offshoot Waymo over stolen trade secrets. He ended up facing an 18-month prison sentence and a massive fine that prompted him to file for bankruptcy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/01\/20\/anthony-levandowski-pardoned-after-stealing-trade-secrets-from-google.html\">but was pardoned<\/a> by former President Donald Trump.<\/p><h2>True Disciple<\/h2><p>Even though the Way of the Future is gone, Levandowski still believes in its founding principles, he told <em>TechCrunch<\/em>.<\/p><p>He believes that genuinely intelligent and <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-consciousness\">perhaps even conscious<\/a> artificial intelligence will be a net positive for society, as long as it&rsquo;s crafted with the right considerations in mind. Church or no church, Levandowski told <em>TechCrunch <\/em>that he wants to make sure that still happens.<\/p><p><strong>READ MORE: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2021\/02\/18\/anthony-levandowski-closes-his-church-of-ai\/?guccounter=1\">Anthony Levandowski closes his Church of AI<\/a> [<em>TechCrunch<\/em>]<\/p><p><strong>More on Levandowski:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/way-future-new-church-worships-ai-god\">Way of the Future: A New Church Worships an AI God<\/a><\/em><\/p><p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down\">Artificial Intelligence-Worshipping Church Officially Shuts Down<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\">Futurism<\/a>.<\/p><p>More:<br><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down\" title=\"Artificial Intelligence-Worshipping Church Officially Shuts Down\">Artificial Intelligence-Worshipping Church Officially Shuts Down<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Closed Doors Remember that artificial intelligence-worshipping church, the Way of the Future? Well, first of all: Yes, that existed .  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/artificial-intelligence-worshipping-church-officially-shuts-down.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}