Artificial intelligence as religion: an evolutionary account and philosophical study

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dc.availability.bitstreamopenaccess
dc.contributor.advisorMurphy, Orlaen
dc.contributor.advisorWalmsley, Joelen
dc.contributor.authorDarby, Max Hollis
dc.date.accessioned2022-01-14T14:34:39Z
dc.date.available2022-01-14T14:34:39Z
dc.date.issued2020-10-01
dc.date.submitted2020-10-01
dc.description.abstractReligions and religious behaviours have been documented in biological and evolutionary terms. This research considers how religions emerged as distributed, de-centralised biological extensions and evolved into centralised cultural organisations. This provides a model of the evolutionary mechanisms that contributed to the origin, development, and proliferation of religions. It establishes that religions encouraged, curated, and leveraged a specific mentality that has not disappeared despite humanity’s move toward secularism. This research interrogates whether the religiously primed mind will attempt to fill a cognitive void with artificial intelligence (AI) systems in a post-religious society. This comparison provides an evolutionary account for how AI systems will use existing religious mechanisms and behavioural tendencies to develop and proliferate from de- centralised extensions of cognition to centralised cultural systems. This research finds that the scenario described above has significant implications with regard to human individuality, moral responsibility, and individual freedom. The thesis will conclude with a proposal for the necessary requirements for retaining these three features in a future where significant amounts of cognitive processes are outsourced to AI systems.en
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationDarby, M. H. 2020. Artificial intelligence as religion: an evolutionary account and philosophical study. MPhil Thesis, University College Cork.en
dc.identifier.endpage111en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/12384
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity College Corken
dc.rights© 2020, Max Hollis Darby.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectAIen
dc.subjectArtificial intelligenceen
dc.subjectReligionen
dc.subjectExtended minden
dc.subjectPhilosophyen
dc.subjectEvolutionary biologyen
dc.subjectFuturismen
dc.titleArtificial intelligence as religion: an evolutionary account and philosophical studyen
dc.typeMasters thesis (Research)en
dc.type.qualificationlevelMastersen
dc.type.qualificationnameMPhil - Master of Philosophyen
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