Tech entrepreneur Anthony Levandowski says he's rebooting his AI-focused church, Way of the Future, and that the congregation has “a couple thousand people”
The self-driving car pioneer said there are “a couple thousand people” coming together to build a spiritual connection between humans and AI
Context & Ripple Effects
Way of the Future was originally presented as a religion centered on an AI “Godhead” in a 2017 account of its AI-religion ambitions. It was then shut down in 2020, with its remaining funds donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in the reported closure and donation.
The reboot revives a previously abandoned vehicle for translating Levandowski’s views on AI into a community organization, rather than a technology product or autonomous-driving venture.
First-order effects
- Way of the Future can resume organizing adherents around its AI-centered spiritual premise; Levandowski says the revived group already includes a couple thousand people.
- The restart reopens public scrutiny of a project that had formally wound down, placing its claimed membership and purpose back in view.
Second-order effects
- The group gives AI debates a new cultural and belief-based venue, separate from the usual product, safety, and business framing.
- Its revival may prompt sharper distinctions between individual AI belief communities and the companies building or deploying AI systems, since the organization is not presented as an AI developer.
Third-order effects
- If similar communities gain durable participation, AI’s social impact discourse could increasingly include institutions that shape meaning and identity, not only technical governance and commercial adoption.
- The episode also shows that AI-centered organizations can persist through closure and revival when they are built around a founder-led worldview; whether this becomes a broader pattern remains unclear.
The trend: AI is becoming a cultural reference point as well as a technology sector, creating space for communities that organize around its perceived social and spiritual significance.