When men fabricate new gods, will those gods invent new universes?

The rise of artilects (artificial intellects, i.e., godlike massively intelligent machines with intellectual capacities trillions of trillions of times above the human level) in this century makes the existence of a deity (a massively intelligent entity capable of creating a universe) seem much more plausible.

— Hugo de Garis, “From Cosmism to Deism”, KurzweilAI.net, January 18, 2011

Do-it-yourself god-making does have its risks, since they will probably develop “minds” of their own and ignore the wishes of their creators:

There are now thousands of AI scientists around the world (concentrated largely in the English-speaking countries) who feel that humanity will be able to build massively intelligent machines this century that will be hugely smarter than human beings. The author, for example, thinks that the issue of whether humanity should build these “artilects” (artificial intellects) will dominate our global politics this century and lead to a “gigadeath” war, killing billions of people.

These AI researchers know that 21st century technology will be capable of creating machines with a bit processing rate trillions of trillions of times above the estimated human-brain-equivalent bit-processing rate, and that neuro-scientific knowledge is advancing at an exponential rate. — Ibid.

Given the size of these artilectual megaminds, could we even comprehend them?

Let us assume for the sake of argument that these artilects are actually built this century, and then speculate on what such creatures might occupy themselves with. Of course, as humans, with our puny human brains, trying to imagine what an artilect would think about is like a mouse trying to imagine what humans think about, using its puny mouse brain. Nevertheless, we will speculate anyway, because some of these human level suggestions may turn out to be correct. — Ibid.

And speculate he does, blithely crossing over into metaphysics:

Let me state my views on theism vs. deism at this point. Deism, as just mentioned, is the belief that there is a “deity,” i.e., a creator of the universe, a grand designer, a cosmic architect, that conceived and built our universe. Theism is the belief in a deity that also cares about the welfare of individual humans. Deism I am open to, whereas I find theism ridiculous. The evidence against it is enormous. For example, last century, about 200-300 million people were killed for “political reasons,” e.g., wars, genocides, purges, ethnic cleansings, etc. It was the bloodiest century in history.

Presumably, millions of those killed were theists, believing that their “theity” would “look out” for their welfare. Well obviously that theity didn’t, because those millions of people were killed anyway. — Ibid.

After engaging in this post hoc reasoning, de Garis invokes evolution (which is always characterized as unplanned and chaotic):

It is much more likely, in my view, that theisms are just examples of “wishful thinking” that people invent to give themselves emotional comfort in an emotionally cold, meaningless, indifferent universe that has evolved creatures like ourselves who are subject to disease, pain, cruelty, poverty, and death. — Ibid.

… but then contradictorily allows for a designer:

… the universe appears to have been designed by a mathematician, i.e., that the universe obeys so many principles of modern mathematics. … The more humanity knows about how deeply mathematical the laws of physics are, the more plausible it seems that the designer of the universe used mathematical principles as a tool. This is the “deity as mathematician” argument (which interestingly seems to suggest that mathematics is more fundamental than even a deity — that even a deity is subject to mathematical constraints and logic?!).
— Ibid.

According to de Garis, because humans in this century will be able to design hyperintelligent agents (the term “supercomputers” seems inadequate), the old gods must fall, to be replaced by entities hitherto undreamed of by humanity:

Traditionally, science has been rather hostile to the idea of theism. I share that hostility. I look on traditional religions as superstitions that are incompatible with modern scientific knowledge. But … I’m far more open to the idea of deism, the belief in a hyperintelligence that designed and created our universe. — Ibid.

Sooner or later such speculation must inevitably run into the stone wall that was erected long ago by theologians:

Perhaps these artilects might even be able to give sensible answers to the very deepest of metaphysical questions, as to why anything exists at all, and whether there exists a “supergod” that started the whole chain of artilects creating a tree of universes. … the question of where the first deity came from remains as mysterious as ever, the ultimate meta-physical question that the most brilliant of theologians have been wondering about for centuries. — Ibid.

… the first, uncaused Cause.

From de Garis’s perspective, for man to reach “God,” he must first invent his own material “gods” — but these gods have to be made in man’s image, since scientism disallows the supernatural.

“… then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

Mary Shelley, anyone?