The church was originally launched in 2015, while Levandowski, while working on Google's self-driving project Waymo. It was an ambitious endeavor, aiming to merge technology and spirituality by fostering a "spiritual connection" with AI. Despite its closure a few years later, Levandowski's renewed venture, as discussed on Bloomberg's AI IRL podcast, has already attracted a "couple thousand people," Bloomberg reports.

"How does a person in rural America relate to this? What does this mean for their job?" he said. "Way of the Future is a mechanism for them to understand and participate and shape the public discourse as to how we think technology should be built to improve you."

The existence of the church became public knowledge in 2017 via Wired, years before ChatGPT brought AI into the mainstream conversation.