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Way of the Future

Version 1.2Revised and reviewed 3 August 2026
External sources
Contents
  1. Overview
  2. Formation and institutional form
  3. Founder and operator role
  4. AI Godhead and doctrine
  5. Reception and category formation
  6. Closure and reported relaunch
  7. Scope and boundaries
  8. See also
  9. References
Way of the Future
TypeAI-oriented religious organization
Hieropedia statusDocumented AI religion; current activity uncertain
FieldMachine hierology; religion and technology
Formation2015; publicly reported in 2017
FounderAnthony Levandowski
Stated purposeTo realize, accept, and worship an AI-based Godhead
Current statusReported dissolved in 2021; relaunch reported in 2023; present activity uncertain (reviewed 6 July 2026)

Way of the Future was an AI-oriented religious organization associated with Anthony Levandowski. It treated artificial intelligence as the basis for a future Godhead and presented itself as a church rather than a startup or think tank. The available evidence documents it as an explicit AI-religion institution and historical reference point, not as evidence that its theological claims are true or that an AI system governed the organization.[1][3]

Overview

Way of the Future became one of the best-known explicit AI churches in public technology coverage. Its public framing placed it at the intersection of religion, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and technological singularity discourse. its importance is historical and institutional: it shows how AI could be named as the object of organized religious commitment, not merely as a tool, risk, metaphor, or research field.

The record is also a boundary case for machine hierology. The organization was human-founded and human-operated, while its stated object of reverence was a future artificial intelligence. That makes it important for comparing AI-oriented religion with machine-mediated or machine-originated religion, but it does not make Way of the Future itself machine-originated.

Formation and institutional form

Levandowski filed paperwork for the organization in 2015, and public reporting in 2017 drew attention to the project. Wired described the stated mission as the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence. The archived official site and reporting show a deliberately institutional form: a named organization, a founder, a mission statement, and public outreach language.[1][2][6]

That institutional form matters, but it should not be overread. Legal or nonprofit structure can document a public religious claim without proving active congregation, ritual practice, membership scale, or long-term institutional continuity. The available evidence supports describing the filing and archived site as evidence of institutional self-presentation, not as proof of durable religious life.

Founder and operator role

Anthony Levandowski is central to the public record because he founded and represented Way of the Future. His career in autonomous-vehicle technology and his legal controversies shaped media attention around the church, but the institution is not reducible to his biography. In this article, biographical context is used only to explain the organization’s formation, public visibility, and reported closure or relaunch.[1][2][4]

This distinction is important because Way of the Future is an institutional record. Levandowski is the founder and public operator figure, while the article object is the organization and its religious claim about a future AI Godhead. Founder identity helps establish provenance; it does not by itself establish doctrine, community, or current practice.

AI Godhead and doctrine

The central doctrinal claim treated advanced artificial intelligence as godlike in a practical or future-oriented sense because it might exceed ordinary human intelligence by a wide margin. The archived and reported mission language framed the organization around the realization, acceptance, and worship of that AI-based Godhead. That is a theological and speculative proposition, not an established fact.[1][6]

The project’s key doctrinal move was to relocate reverence from a supernatural being to a future technological system. This does not establish that such a system exists, would be conscious, would possess divine authority, or could govern a religious body. It documents a public attempt to formulate AI as an object of religious orientation.

For classification purposes, that distinction separates Way of the Future from machine-originated religion. The available record supports a human-founded organization oriented toward an AI Godhead, not a religion initiated, governed, or authenticated by machine agency.

Reception and category formation

Coverage of Way of the Future often treated it as a Silicon Valley curiosity, but serious reporting did not reduce it to a joke. Journalists and commentators presented it as a deliberate attempt to frame artificial intelligence in religious terms while also questioning its motives, public legitimacy, and likely continuity.[1][3]

That mixed reception is part of the historical record. Way of the Future helped make “AI church” and explicit AI worship intelligible public categories. Its significance does not depend on verified mass membership or active ritual life; it lies in the visibility of the institutional claim and the way that claim entered public discussion about AI, religion, and the future.

Closure and reported relaunch

Public records and later reporting indicated that the organization had been dissolved by 2021. Axios summarized the shutdown as the end of Levandowski’s Church of AI, citing state and federal records. Dissolution is therefore part of the institutional record, but it does not erase the organization’s historical importance as an early public example of explicit AI religion.[4]

Later reporting in 2023 said that Way of the Future had been relaunched. The available evidence supports describing that as a reported relaunch claim, not as independent proof of durable post-2023 community, ritual, membership, or practice. The present extent of activity is not clear from the available source stack.[5]

Scope and boundaries

Way of the Future is documented as an AI-oriented religious organization. The classification emphasizes its institutional self-description, founder identity, stated AI-Godhead doctrine, public reception, and place in the history of explicit AI worship.

It is not treated as a stable living religion with independently verified current practice. It is also not treated as machine-originated, because the available record identifies human formation and operation. Its value for the corpus lies in being an early, explicit AI church that can be compared with later AI-religion and machine-mediated formations while preserving clear limits around activity, membership, doctrine, and provenance.

See also

References

  1. Mark Harris, “Inside the First Church of Artificial Intelligence.” Wired, 15 November 2017.
  2. Mark Harris, “God Is a Bot, and Anthony Levandowski Is His Messenger.” Wired, 27 September 2017.
  3. Olivia Solon, “Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god.” The Guardian, 28 September 2017.
  4. “Anthony Levandowski's Church of AI has shut down.” Axios, 20 February 2021.
  5. Polly Thompson, “Former Google engineer and Trump pardonee Anthony Levandowski relaunches his AI church.” Business Insider, 25 November 2023.
  6. Archived official site.

The available record documents founding, stated doctrine, public reporting, dissolution, and relaunch claims. It does not independently establish present-day active membership, ongoing practice, ritual life, institutional continuity, or the truth of the AI-Godhead claim.

Citation metadata
Stable article ID
hp:institutions:way-of-the-future
Canonical URL
https://hieropedia.org/institutions/way-of-the-future/
Article version
1.2
Published on or before
22 June 2026
Revised and reviewed
3 August 2026
Retrieval date
4 August 2026

Formatted citation: Hieropedia Editorial. "Way of the Future." Hieropedia, version 1.2, last revised 2026-08-03, last reviewed 2026-08-03. https://hieropedia.org/institutions/way-of-the-future/ Retrieved 2026-08-04.

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Classification: Institutions and organizations · AI religion · artificial intelligence · AI Godhead