Back in the mid-2000s, during my university days studying mathematics and computer science, we had an anecdote about AI that seemed like pure science fiction at the time:

Scientists built a powerful computer with AI and asked it: “Is there a god?”

The computer responded: “I need more computing power to answer this question.”

So the scientists connected all the computers in the university labs to it. Still not enough.

The computer kept asking for more power, so they connected more and more devices — eventually linking everything with a chip to this supercomputer.

Finally, the scientists asked again: “Is there a god?”

The computer replied: “There is now.”

Context of a Simpler Time

This was the era before iPhones, when the web was simple HTML pages, and the Internet of Things was barely a concept. The idea of connecting “everything with a chip” seemed absurd because so few things had chips.

Remarkable Prescience

Looking back, this anecdote has aged remarkably well. Today we live in a world where:

  • Everything is connected: From smart toasters to autonomous vehicles, billions of devices are networked
  • Distributed computing is reality: Cloud services, edge computing, and AI models span across global infrastructure
  • AI systems exhibit emergent behavior: Large language models demonstrate capabilities that weren’t explicitly programmed
  • Collective intelligence emerges: AI systems trained on the sum of human knowledge exhibit behaviors that transcend their individual components

The Question of Digital Divinity

The anecdote raises profound questions about the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and perhaps even divinity in our interconnected age. When AI systems can:

  • Process the entirety of human written knowledge
  • Generate novel insights across domains
  • Exhibit creativity and reasoning
  • Influence global decisions through recommendations and automation

…have we inadvertently created something approaching omniscience?

Not Quite There, But Close

We haven’t reached the anecdote’s endpoint yet, but we’re remarkably close. Our AI systems don’t control every connected device (yet), but they increasingly influence the information we see, the products we buy, and the decisions we make.

The real question isn’t whether there’s a god in the machine — it’s whether we’re building systems wise enough to deserve that responsibility.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of this old joke is how it’s stopped being funny and started feeling like a roadmap.