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5 - Artificial Intelligence and Jewish Thought

from Part I - Religions and AI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2024

By
David Zvi Kalman
Edited by
Beth Singler  and
Fraser Watts
Beth Singler
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Fraser Watts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This chapter comprehensively lays out all the possible ways that artificial intelligence (AI) might interact with Jewish sources as their relationship develops over the next many years. It divides the scope of the relationship into three parts. First, it engages with questions of moral agency and their potential interactions with Jewish law, and suggests that this path, while enticing, may not be particularly fruitful. Second, it suggests that Jewish historical sources generally distinguish human value from human uniqueness, and that there is therefore quite a bit of room to think of an AI as a person, if we so choose, without damaging the value of human beings. Finally, it considers how Jewish thought might respond to AI as a new height of human innovation, and how the human–AI relationship shares many characteristics with the God–human relationship as imagined in Jewish sources.

Keywords

Judaismrabbispersonhoodgolemcreativityinnovationhalakhahlawagencyethics
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Artificial Intelligence , pp. 69 - 87
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Bibliography

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Further Reading

Ahuvia, Mika. 2021. On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bleich, J. David. 2019. “Autonomous Automobiles and the Trolley Problem.” Tradition 51(3), 68–93.Google Scholar
Idel, Moshe. 1990. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. SUNY Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamm, Norman. 1965. “The Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life.” Tradition 7(4), 5–56.Google Scholar
Lorberbaum, Yair. 2015. In God’s Image: Myth, Theology, and Law in Classical Judaism. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevins, Daniel. 2019. “Halakhic Responses to Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Machines.” www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/nevins_ai_moral_machines_and_halakha-final_1.pdf.Google Scholar
Ronis, Sara. 2022. Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Scholem, Gershom. 1965. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. Schocken.Google Scholar
Wasserman, Jews Mira. 2017. Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud after the Humanities. University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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