Do the Claims of A.I. Replace Orthodox Christianity? The Theological Demands of Transhumanism — Peter Thiel on Ross Douthat’s Interesting Times

Can humans live forever? Can they create a technology to transcend their own mortality? What will Artificial Intelligence become?

Recently Peter Thiel, one of the most prominent technological innovators and tech-founders in Silicon Valley, Joined Ross Douthat of the New York Times to discuss the future of technology. In addition to being a leader in technology, Peter Thiel has also made a name for himself in the realm of ideas, especially in the more conservative wing of Silicon Valley.

At one point in the interview, Douthat asks Thiel about anti-aging research:

What does it mean to say we need to take more risks in anti-aging research? Does it mean that the F.D.A. has to step back and say: Anyone who has a new treatment for Alzheimer’s can go ahead and sell it on the open market? What does risk in the medical space look like?

Thiel responds by saying we’re probably not taking enough risks:

If you have some fatal disease, there are probably a lot more risks you can take. There are a lot more risks the researchers can take. Culturally, what I imagine it looks like is early modernity where people thought we would cure diseases. They thought we would have radical life extension. Immortality was part of the project of early modernity. 

Of which he mentions Francis Bacon and Condorcet. He continues, “maybe it was anti-Christian, maybe it was downstream of Christianity. It was competitive.” Then he adds this,

 If Christianity promised you a physical resurrection, science was not going to succeed unless it promised you the exact same thing. I remember 1999 or 2000, when we were running PayPal, one of my co-founders, Luke Nosek — he was into Alcor and cryonics and that people should freeze themselves. And we had one day where we took the whole company to a freezing party. You know a Tupperware party? People sell Tupperware policies. At a freezing party, they sell . . .

At this point Ross Douthat interjects, “Was it just their heads? What was going to be frozen?” 

“You could get a full body or just a head,” Thiel responds.

And Douthat muses back, “The ‘just the head’ option was cheaper.”

This is cryonics, freezing — really freezing — freezing the human body or maybe even just the human head in hopes of an eventual extension of life later on. 

Inevitably, their conversation turned to artificial intelligence. If I am going to listen to anyone about Artificial Intelligence, I’m going to be very interested in what Peter Thiel thinks. Discussing the future of AI, Thiel said that we need a proper framework to understand the impact of this technology: “My stupid answer is: It’s more than a nothing burger, and it’s less than the total transformation of our society.” 

That’s a pretty big spectrum. Thiel then cited the development of the personal computer as a parallel, noting AI’s impact could well be on that scale. Regarding the limits of AI, Thiel referenced the “gating factor,” or the factor that keeps progress from speeding up or breaking through. Like closing a gate, the gating factor is a limiter on technological progress.

A lot of the transhumanists don’t want to accept a gating factor. Many assume that, given enough time, even any current limits can be overcome. But Peter Thiel openly acknowledged that whatever transhumanism, techno-optimism, or the AI revolution offers, it’s basically a replacement for the influence of orthodox Christianity. To this end he said: 

The critique orthodox Christianity has of this, is these things don’t go far enough. That transhumanism is just changing your body, but you also need to transform your soul, and you need to transform your whole self.

That’s a pretty key insight coming from someone who is not identified with orthodox Christianity. Yet Thiel sees orthodox Christianity and recognizes that it demands more than “longer this” or “longer that.” It demands more than a “longer me.” It demands more, and promises more, than this continued physical existence. It is nothing short of total transformation. That is a very interesting acknowledgement. These secular substitutes cannot bring or promise anything close.

Though Peter Thiel comes from a different place than me in many ways, he is onto something when he says, in his own worldview analysis, that when you look at Europe, there are only three major worldviews still available — it’s Greta Thunberg Green, Sharia Law, or Totalitarian Communism:

“I want to say it’s the only thing people still believe in Europe. They believe in the green thing more than the Islamic Sharia law or more than the Chinese communist totalitarian takeover.” I think that’s very insightful. When Christianity goes into recession, it’s not replaced by nothing. Thiel is absolutely right that in Europe, Christianity has been replaced by these three things.

The big question is, what is the trajectory of the United States? I think you could make the argument that something very similar to this could take place as a contest of worldviews in the aftermath of a declining Christianity in the U.S. If indeed Christianity continues to recede and goes into an even more pronounced recession in the United States, it will not be replaced by nothing. It is going to be replaced with something. And those somethings are very likely to be already implemented elsewhere in the world. 

The conversation took a fascinating turn when the issue of Calvinism came up. Where does Calvinism emerge in a conversation with Peter Thiel and Ross Douthat? It has to do with God’s intervention in history. 

Ross Douthat said that God is behind Jesus Christ entering history, because God was not going to leave us in “a stagnationist, decadent Roman Empire . . . at some point, God is going to step in.” 

Peter Thiel responded, “I’m not that Calvinist.” 

To which Ross Douthat retorted, “That’s not Calvinism, though. That’s just Christianity. God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg. He will not abandon us to that fate.” 

Put that on a bumper sticker.

Amidst all this transhumanism, techno-optimism, and secular confusion that is replacing Christianity in the minds and hearts of so many, it is really important that we recognize there are limited replacements to Christianity. Peter Thiel’s observation of Europe being dominated by either environmentalism, Islamism, or Marxism, is quite apt. Regrettably, many of these ideologies are already baked into the thinking of a larger number of Americans than you may want to think. 

It can be a temptation to see so much in the media these days and say, “That’s absolutely nuts,” but that is what we said about something else two weeks ago. This is the way a culture of confusion works. It just gets more confused and then it moves on to confusing something else.

Our call is not Christianity and anything else. It is the Christian biblical revelation, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ over and against everything else. 

It is Christ and nothing else, because Christ is everything.