Adopt AI or Die? "The God Test" proposes AI is an opportunity and epochal threat
An imam could say just the same.”It was a clever eighteenth-century comeback to a pious seventeenth-century Catholic. When Blaise Pascal advised that it was a better bet to believe in God, or at least to conduct oneself in a godly manner, just in case he existed, he had a very particular god in mind. But why not Allah, or the god of the Jews, or the gods of the Hindus or the ancient Greeks?
- ▪An imam could say just the same.”It was a clever eighteenth-century comeback to a pious seventeenth-century Catholic.
- ▪When Blaise Pascal advised that it was a better bet to believe in God, or at least to conduct oneself in a godly manner, just in case he existed, he had a very particular god in mind.
- ▪But why not Allah, or the god of the Jews, or the gods of the Hindus or the ancient Greeks?
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| Original publisher | The New Republic |
| Canonical URL | https://newrepublic.com/article/213738/artificial-intelligence-god-test-adopt-ai-die |
| Publication time | Sun, 02 Aug 2026 17:54:04 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-02T18:10:41.766Z |
| Last seen | 2026-08-02T18:10:41.766Z |
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| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
DIVINE DELUSIONAdopt AI or Die?In his new book The God Test, Robert Wright proposes that humanity is facing both a singular opportunity and an epochal threat.Jacob Bacharach/August 2, 2026Illustration by Ariel DavisOf Pascal’s famous wager on the existence of God, Denis Diderot dryly remarked, nearly a century later, “Pascal says: If your religion is false, you risk nothing in believing it true; if it’s true, you risk everything by believing it false. An imam could say just the same.”It was a clever eighteenth-century comeback to a pious seventeenth-century Catholic. When Blaise Pascal advised that it was a better bet to believe in God, or at least to conduct oneself in a godly manner, just in case he existed, he had a very particular god in mind.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The New Republic.
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