Artificial Intelligence is a 'new false idol,' says Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy

In a recent Q&A in Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy discussed the dangers of artificial intelligence becoming a substitute for God.

“How do you feel about AI?” asked an 11-year old boy in the audience.

“How do I feel about it? It’s a great question. It’s gonna be what affects your generation,” Ramaswamy responded, before posing the question back to the audience member. “How do you feel about AI?”

“Scared,” the boy replied.

“That’s an honest and sane response,” Ramaswamy said, going on to describe both his policy positions and the wider philosophical implications of AI’s rapid development. 

Ramaswamy began by sharing his experience of being a tennis ball boy and line judge. He said that “players used to argue with the line judges over the call,” but that when human line judges were first replaced by AI, “players stopped arguing with the calls,” even when it was clearly a bad call.

“So why do I bring that up?” Ramaswamy continued. “The biggest danger of AI is actually the human response to it.”

Outlining his vision for U.S. policy on AI, Ramaswamy argued that there should be a “hard boundary between AI and kids,” that “we should not ban anything that China is also not willing to ban,” and that the government should “put the liability on companies” for “any unforeseen consequences of a protocol that you develop.”

After laying out his policy positions, Ramaswamy then returned to the philosophical questions, arguing that soon more and more people would put their trust in AI as an authority on objective truth.

“Go to ChatGPT today, or some equivalent, and ask, ‘How do you address climate change?’ or ‘How do you address racial injustice?’ or whatever. It’ll give you an answer as though it’s a political opinion, but it reads with the authority of somebody who’s converting degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the real danger.”

He went on to say that we must not allow AI to replace God in our lives.

“At a philosophical level the best answer to the risks posed by AI is actually the revival of faith in this country—faith, and patriotism, and a belief in something bigger than ourselves. Because here’s what’s really going on, whether it’s AI, or wokeism, or transgenderism, or climate-ism, or Covidism, or depression, anxiety, fentanyl, suicide—it’s not an accident that we see the rise of these same poisons at the same time.”

A practicing Hindu who has said he believes in “one God,” Ramaswamy went on to say it is a lack of faith that is the primary cause of the current problems in America.

“They’re symptoms of a deeper void of purpose and meaning in our country. And I think we’ve gotta fill that vacuum with the real thing. There’s an old expression—if there’s a hole the size of God in your heart and God does not fill it, something else will instead.”

Ramaswamy concluded his response by saying America must not bow to the “new false idol” of AI.

“So that’s what’s going on in the country right now…we are lost, we’re hungry for purpose, and that belief in something bigger than ourselves is actually gonna be the best protection against bending the knee to whatever the new false idol is—AI perhaps being the latest one.”

Early on in his campaign, Ramaswamy had a long-form discussion on the future of AI and technology in general, in which he expressed concern about the “religiosity” of the “techno-utopianism that…pervades Silicon Valley culture.”

Currently fourth place among remaining Republican presidential candidates, Ramaswamy is polling nationally at about 4%, far behind Trump’s commanding lead of 63%.