Historian Yuval Harari warns AI will take over religion, law and jobs

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Thursday, January 22, 2026

It could happen in the next two years or the next decade, but renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari believes that artificial intelligence is already so advanced and deeply entrenched in society that anything made of words, such as religions like Christianity and Judaism, will be taken over by AI.

In a stark warning to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Harari said AI should not be mistaken for a tool but a thinking agent that can create new things and make decisions that will likely leave humanity in an identity crisis in the coming years.

“We always think that we can just use these things as tools. But if they can think, they are agents,” warned Harari, a University of Cambridge distinguished research fellow in its Center for the Study of Existential Risk. He is also a lecturer in the history department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-founder of Sapienship.

“Previously, all the words, all our verbal thoughts, they originated in some human mind. Either my mind, I thought this, or I learned it from another human. Soon most of the words in our minds will originate in a machine,” he said. “I just heard today about a new word that AIs coined by themselves to describe us humans. They called us the watchers. ... AIs will soon be the origin of maybe most of the words in our minds. AIs will mass produce thoughts by assembling words, symbols, images, and other language tokens into new combinations.”

In a session at the forum billed "An Honest Conversation on AI and Humanity," Harari said in a brief presentation and discussion moderated by British neuroscientist and vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, Irene Tracey, that because of AI’s exponential ability to process, create and manipulate words, the survival of human identity will likely be determined by the value society places on non-verbal feelings and wisdom.

“Whether humans will still have a place in that world depends on the place we assign our nonverbal feelings and our ability to embody wisdom that cannot be expressed in words. If we continue to define ourselves by our ability to think in words, our identity will collapse,” Harari said.

At the start of his presentation, Harari defined why AI shouldn’t be treated like a tool.

“There is one question that every leader today must answer about AI. But to understand that question, we first need to clarify a few points about what AI is and what AI can do. The most important thing to know about AI is that it is not just another tool. It is an agent,” he declared.

“It can learn and change by itself and make decisions by itself. A knife is a tool. You can use a knife to cut salad or to murder someone, but it is your decision what to do with the knife. AI is a knife that can decide by itself whether to cut salad or to commit murder.”

Harari said AI can also lie, manipulate and think, if the definition of thinking “means putting words and other language tokens in order.”

“If thinking really means putting words and other language tokens in order, then AI can already think much better than many many humans. AI can certainly come up with a sentence like AI thinks, therefore AI am,” he explained, connecting how AI’s ability to think using words will lead to it taking over certain religions and legal systems.

“If laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If books are just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion. This is particularly true of religions based on books like Islam, Christianity, or Judaism,” he said.

“Judaism called itself the religion of the book and it grants ultimate authority not to humans but to words in books. Humans have authority in Judaism not because of our experiences but only because we learn words in books. Now, no human can read and remember all the words in all the Jewish books. But AI can easily do that. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?” he asked.

Harari states that while the world is grappling with significant discussions about immigration, countries “will soon face a severe identity crisis and also an immigration crisis” due to AI advancement.

“The immigrants this time will not be human beings coming in fragile boats without a visa or trying to cross a border in the middle of the night. The immigrants will be millions of AIs that can write love poems better than us, that can lie better than us and that can travel at the speed of light without any need of visas,” Harari argued.

“Like human immigrants, these AI immigrants will bring various benefits with them. We will have AI doctors to help in our health care systems, AI teachers to help in our education systems, even AI border guards to stop illegal human immigrants. But the AI immigrants will also bring with them problems,” he continued.

He explained that citizens of many countries often worry that immigrants might take jobs, change the culture, or be politically disloyal.

“I'm not sure that's true of all human immigrants, but it will definitely be true of the AI immigrants. The AI immigrants will take many human jobs. The AI immigrants will completely change the culture of every country. They will change out religion and even romance,” he said.

Across global jurisdictions, he said, corporations, rivers and even gods have been recognized as legal persons. He questioned whether that would likely happen over time as well.

“Do we want to allow that? Will your country recognize AIs as legal persons? What if other countries do it? Suppose your country doesn't want to recognize AIs as persons. But the USA in the name of deregulating AI and deregulating the markets grants legal recognition, legal personhood to millions of AIs which start running millions of new corporations,” he said.

“Suppose some AI persons create a new religion, which gains the faith of millions of people? That should not sound too far-fetched because, after all, almost all previous religions in history have claimed that they were created by a non-human intelligence,” he continued. “Now, will your country extend freedom of religion to the new AI sect and to its AI priests and missionaries?”

Harari asserts that AIs have been operating as functional persons for the past decade and suggests that now is the time for countries to act to regulate AI's influence.

“Will your country allow AI persons to open social media accounts, enjoy freedom of speech, on Facebook, on TikTok, and be friendly with children? Well, of course, that question should have been asked 10 years ago. On social media, AI bots have been operating as functional persons for at least a decade. If you think AIs should not be treated as persons on social media, you should have acted 10 years ago,” he said.

“Ten years from now, it will be too late for you to decide whether AIs should function as persons in the financial markets, in the courts, in the churches. Somebody else will already have decided it for you. If you want to influence where humanity is going, you need to make a decision now.”