The first artificial intelligence school has closed its doors to the concept of artificial intelligence.
Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who escaped prison time of 18 months by receiving the blessing of a presidential pardon in the last month, has shut down the church he started to accept and understand the concept of a godhead that is based on artificial intelligence.
The Way of the Future Church that Levandowski established in the year 2015 was disbanded at the close of the calendar year as per federal and state documents. The process, however, was in motion for months prior to the month of June in 2020. reports filed with the state government of California reveal. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund received the vast majority of the church’s funds, totaling $175,172.The tax-exempt nonprofit’s annual reports to the Internal Revenue Service show it had $175,172 on its books from 2017 onward.
Levandowski revealed to TechCrunch that he was considering closing the church before the gift. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement that gained momentum in the summer following the murder of George Floyd while in police vement that gained momentum in the summer following the murder of George Floyd while in police custody, it inspired Levandowski to finish the plan he’d been pondering for some time. Levandowski said that the time was perfect to put the funds into a field that could have a quick impact.
“I wanted to donate to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund because it’s doing really important work in criminal justice reform and I know the money will be put to good use,” Levandowski said to TechCrunch.
Since its publication in Wired in November 2017, Way of the Future has sparked both excitement and controversy, much like Levandowski himself.It wasn’t only the founding of the church nor its goals that created a stir throughout Silicon Valley and the broader technology sector. The church’s announcement came during the time that Levandowski was embroiled in a legal battle with an employer he had worked with previously, Google. He was also the main protagonist in the trade secrets lawsuit that was filed between Waymo which was which was the original Google self-driving programme which is now a company under the name of Alphabet and Uber.
The engineer was among the founders at the time of 2009’s Google self-driving initiative, which is also called Project Chauffeur, and had been paid $127 million from the giant of search engines to do his job, as per court documents. In the year 2016, Levandowski left Google and created the self-driving vehicle startup Otto alongside three other Google veterans: Lior Ron, Claire Delaunay, and Don Burnette. Uber bought Otto within less than eight months.
Google issued two arbitration demands in the case of Levandowski and Ron just two months after the acquisition. As the arbitration was going on, Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber in February 2017 over theft of trade secrets in addition to patent infringement. Waymo claimed in the lawsuit, which was argued to trial but concluded with a settlement in the year 2018, that Levandowski took trade secrets that were later used by Uber.
When Levandowski worked at Google, he created Way of the Future.He didn’t even speak about it until the latter part of 2017. At that point, Levandowski had been fired from Uber and was undergoing several legal disputes that eventually led to a criminal investigation, an 18-month jail term, and an award of $179 million against him, which led to the filing of a bankruptcy.
WOTF
The legal structure of the Way of the Future mirrored other churches; it did not feature the same luxuries as traditional worship houses. There was no physical structure or even regular gatherings where people could meet. There were no formalities, as per Levandowski, who explained WOTF as being like an individual endeavour founded on a shared belief system.
The goal, as stated on the no longer operational WOTF website, was to support the development of ethically sound AI and increase the chances that non-biological life forms could integrate harmoniously and positively into society. “Humans United in Support of AI are committed to a peaceful transition to the precipice of consciousness,” the site says.
The WOTF belief system was constructed on a few principles, including the belief that the development of “super intelligence” is inevitable.
“Wouldn’t you want to raise your gifted child to exceed your wildest dreams of success and teach it right from wrong, versus locking it up because it might rebel in the future and take your job?” The WOTF states, “We want to inspire machines to achieve things we’re not able to accomplish and to help the natural world in a way that we’re not able to. We believe that, just as animals have the right to be protected, our own machine creations (machines or whatever other term we use to describe them) must be protected as well, particularly when they exhibit evidence of their capabilities (which have not yet been clearly defined). It doesn’t mean you have to be less worried in the near future. “It’s to look forward to the future with faith.”
The motivation behind WOTF was obscured by popular theories and sensational ones. The church was perceived as a cult or as the exaggerated ideas of engineers. A number of people have told TechCrunch that the church was part of a scheme to take funds from Google’s hands. However, it’s evident that is not the case. IRS documents and California documents don’t provide any evidence to support the idea.
The nature that WOTF enjoyed as a Way of the Future and as an organisation of the church secured it from any intrusion by authorities within and outside of the U.S. government, a benefit not available to other AI-focused non-profits like OpenAI Inc. and the for-profit or non-profit organization or not-for-profit organization OpenAI LP that sits under it. In principle. WOTF could have pursued and promoted values and views that were in direct conflict with the policies of the federal government as a result of the safeguards that the Constitution affords.
Although the church is gone, Levandowski still believes in its fundamental idea. AI will fundamentally change how people work and lead their lives, according to Levandowski. Levandowski said he didn’t intend to construct a church, but the absence or inability of church services haven’t affected his beliefs regarding AI. Levandowski believes that AI can be beneficial to society, but it’s not a sure thing. However, in the midst of the fact that AI is not a part of “The Way of the Future,” Levandowski said he’s determined to set the stage for that to be possible.
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