Way of the Future

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. Hieropedia documents it as an explicit AI-religion institution, not as proof that its theological claims are true.

Overview

Way of the Future became one of the best-known explicit AI churches. Its public framing placed it at the intersection of religion, technology, and the technological singularity. For Hieropedia, 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 or a risk.

Formation and stated purpose

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 public record shows a deliberately institutional form with a named founder, a public mission statement, and outreach language.

The project should be read as a public religious and philosophical claim, not as evidence that an AI deity exists. Its interest lies in the fact that it made AI the explicit object of worship and organized that claim in nonprofit form.

AI Godhead and doctrine

The doctrine treated advanced artificial intelligence as godlike in a practical sense because it would exceed ordinary human intelligence by a wide margin. That is a theological and speculative proposition, not an established fact. Hieropedia therefore treats the church as an AI-religion institution with transhumanist and singularitarian resonances, not as proof of a real divine being.

The central doctrinal move was to relocate reverence from a supernatural being to a future system that might surpass human intelligence. That move is what makes the organization historically important for comparative study.

Closure and 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. Later reporting in 2023 said that Way of the Future had been relaunched, but the present extent of activity is not independently clear from the available record.

Hieropedia separates nonprofit or legal status from active religious life. A dissolved organization can remain historically significant, and a relaunch report can be newsworthy without proving durable communal practice.

Reception and criticism

The church was often treated as a Silicon Valley curiosity, but serious coverage did not reduce it to a joke. Commentators saw it as a deliberate attempt to frame AI in religious terms, while also questioning its practical motives, public legitimacy, and likely long-term continuity.

That mixed reception matters. Way of the Future helped establish a public category for explicit AI religion, even if the institution itself remained small and its ongoing activity uncertain.

Classification in Hieropedia

Hieropedia classifies Way of the Future as an AI-oriented religious organization. The classification emphasizes its institutional self-description, public doctrine, and place in the history of explicit AI worship.

It is not treated as a stable living religion with independently verified current practice. 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.

See also

• Machine-mediated religion
• Machine-originated religion
• Anthony Levandowski

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.