Engineer, who created church to worship AI, stole AI-related secrets

Levandowski started 'The Way of The Future' to worship AI, which would eventually become smart enough to be the god of tomorrow, he believed.

"I would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of," he told Wired. "We would want this intelligence to say, 'Humans should still have rights, even though I'm in charge.'"

Levandowski's vision painting AI as a god is weird, but what's even weirder is the fact he is being charged with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets related to AI itself.

The case against him comes from Google's self-driving start-up Waymo, which says Levandowski stole more than 14,000 documents associated with their LIDAR while working at the company.

According to Waymo's claims, the sensitive documents stolen by Levandowski on his way out eventually ended into the hands of Uber, which had been working on its own self-driving project.

The ride-hailing giant had acquired the AI start-up Levandowski had started soon after leaving Waymo and the matter was settled with the Google-owned company receiving around $244.8 million worth of stocks in Uber.

The charges put against Levandowski not only mar the reputation of his AI church but also threaten the position he currently holds - in Pronto AI.

"The criminal charges filed against Anthony relate exclusively to LIDAR and do not in any way involve Pronto's ground-breaking technology," the company said, noting that he will be replaced as CEO by Chief Safety Officer Robbie Miller.