Copyright The Times
Regulating AI is the devil’s own work, says Thiel
One of the world’s most powerful technology leaders has reportedly warned that regulating artificial intelligence risks hastening the coming of the Antichrist.
Peter Thiel, the conservative billionaire who co-founded Palantir, the data analytics group, and PayPal, the payments operator, is said to have made the comments during a lecture delivered in San Francisco this week.
Thiel, a former donor to Donald Trump and mentor to JD Vance, the vice-president, said that fearing or regulating promising technology and scientific progress, including in AI, risked courting the devil, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people who attended the event.
Thiel is among several Silicon Valley figures who have been speaking more openly about their faith. The investor in defence and weapons development technology companies is in the midst of delivering a sold-out series of lectures on the biblical Antichrist. The talks have been organised by a collective known as Acts 17 Collective — “Acts” standing for “Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society”. The nonprofit group was founded last year by Michelle Stephens, a healthcare startup executive and the wife of Trae Stephens, a partner at Thiel’s Founders Fund, a venture capital firm. Stephens is also co-founder of Anduril Industries, which makes and sells autonomous weapons systems.
The talks were marketed as “off the record” but a guest at the first of four talks published notes of the first lecture on his personal website.
His post, which has since been removed, was picked up by the San Francisco Standard, and had reportedly said that Thiel argued that because we are increasingly concerned about existential threats, the time is ripe for the Antichrist to rise to power, promising peace and safety by strangling technological progress with regulation.
Michelle Stephens is reported to have told Kshitij Kulkarni, the software executive behind the post: “You are in violation of the clear off the record [policy] we implemented and reiterated many times. Your ticket is revoked without refund.”
Thiel has previously warned against the emergence of an individual or system that could exploit fears of global catastrophe driven by AI to enforce a “one-world totalitarian state”.
Peter Thiel, the conservative billionaire who co-founded Palantir, the data analytics group, and PayPal, the payments operator, is said to have made the comments during a lecture delivered in San Francisco this week.
Thiel, a former donor to Donald Trump and mentor to JD Vance, the vice-president, said that fearing or regulating promising technology and scientific progress, including in AI, risked courting the devil, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people who attended the event.
Thiel is among several Silicon Valley figures who have been speaking more openly about their faith. The investor in defence and weapons development technology companies is in the midst of delivering a sold-out series of lectures on the biblical Antichrist. The talks have been organised by a collective known as Acts 17 Collective — “Acts” standing for “Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society”. The nonprofit group was founded last year by Michelle Stephens, a healthcare startup executive and the wife of Trae Stephens, a partner at Thiel’s Founders Fund, a venture capital firm. Stephens is also co-founder of Anduril Industries, which makes and sells autonomous weapons systems.
The talks were marketed as “off the record” but a guest at the first of four talks published notes of the first lecture on his personal website.
His post, which has since been removed, was picked up by the San Francisco Standard, and had reportedly said that Thiel argued that because we are increasingly concerned about existential threats, the time is ripe for the Antichrist to rise to power, promising peace and safety by strangling technological progress with regulation.
Michelle Stephens is reported to have told Kshitij Kulkarni, the software executive behind the post: “You are in violation of the clear off the record [policy] we implemented and reiterated many times. Your ticket is revoked without refund.”
Thiel has previously warned against the emergence of an individual or system that could exploit fears of global catastrophe driven by AI to enforce a “one-world totalitarian state”.
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