Summary

Chapter 22 begins with a story Victor Stein tells his guests about the Gnostic Christian texts found in 1945 in Nag Hammadi, a town west of Luxor in Egypt. The texts narrated the creation of the world and include the story of Sophia. Sophia is also the name of a humanlike robot invented by Hanson Robotics. Sophia wonders if she could create a world and, in so doing, creates the world with her mind. She finds herself trapped, however, in materiality. After her rescue, she leaves Jehovah in charge of planet earth. Sophia, Stein says, gives humans a special gift: “a divine spark - a sense of their true nature as beings of light” (294). Stein then claims that artificial intelligence is the realization of the human dream: “We are not bound to our bodies. We can live forever” (295). Ron asks what Gnostic is and Stein...