There is nothing inherently Jewish about Artificial Intelligence but there are three good reasons I wrote a series about AI from a Jewish perspective (that just concluded last week).
The Perils and Promise of AI from J: The Jewish News of Northern California
First, the topic is vast and it needs a frame, any frame really, to make it manageable. Second, there are a surprising number of Jews who have been involved in the development of the actual human technology that has led to the Large Language Models that are, for the moment, how people find AI. And third, the historical American imagination of AI has a disproportionately Jewish flavour.
When the Soong-type android Commander Data is in the dock pleading for his rights as a sentient being, Jewish actor Brent Spiner was the one staring out from yellow eyes. Spiner’s portrayal of Data in “Measure of a Man” and throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation follows in the Jewish footsteps of Leonard Nimoy as the machine-like Vulcan Spock in Star Trek: The Original Series and, even beyond Star Trek, Jews have long been associated with representing different, non-human, types of life.
Even if we ignore the legend of the Golem, the clay man brought to life by code, as a precursor to stories about AI, the broad Jewish contribution to science fiction extends to imagining worlds with thinking machines. Directors Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg (A.I. in 2001) followed after writers like Robert Sheckley (“Watchbird” (1953) et al), Harlan Ellison (“"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967) et al), Marge Piercy (He, She And It from 1991), and, most notably, Isaac Asimov (I Robot from 1950) to dramatically portray how artificial intelligence might affect human civilization. If Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics obligating robots to avoid harming humans could have been implemented in time, they might even have prevented HAL 9000 from famously attacking his crew in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. (1968)
Few of these writers, though, looked at the topic through a Jewish lens. Is Judaism substrate agnostic for example? That is, does the religion care whether sentience is imprinted on a carbon-based lifeform or a silicon-based lifeform? Is it only humans who have souls? What does Judaism (or any other ethical tradition) say about our use of the technology? As I mention in the series, David Zvi Kalman and Sara Wolkenfeld — among others — have written about this.
David Zvi Kalman
Jewish Lights video interview, AI and the Future of Humanity
Jello Menorah, Deep Research will change Jewish Law
Sara Wolkenfeld
Religion Dispataches, How Renegade Rabbis Teach Us About AI
The Atlantic, Productivity Is a Drag. Work Is Divine
By the time J. published my third article on artificial intelligence — 7 months after we first started the project — some of the alarm bells I wanted to sound were already ringing across society, if drowned out by domestic U.S. and global events. Yes, there were doomsayers, but I wanted to ring the bells of both opportunity and caution. AI is the most consequential technology since electricity, yet, in much of the Jewish institutional world, like in the institutional world as a whole, urgency is either absent or unfocused.
My articles emerged from a growing sense that we are in danger of missing the moment.
Yael Eisenstat, who I quote — but whose appropriate warnings might have overweighted the article had I quoted her more fully — has spoken over the years and at length about the dangers of unattended algorithms and AI. To paraphrase her: AI is an unbelievably powerful tool and it can amplify bad human tendencies. Unless we have a major social movement, the databases that power AI and the people who are in charge of the technology will replicate and exacerbate our existing problems including inequities of situation and opportunity, biases of perspective, loss of privacy, poor employment conditions, and climate-altering systems. Look, at the moment, even using AI is such an energy drain, it’s worsening climate change.
With the help of my intrepid editor Chanan Tigay, I invoked both this caution as well as the utopian potential of AI in a quite lengthy, narrative first piece. Using Scott Wiener’s relatively friendly attempt to legislate toward a productive AI, I explored the tension between the chance to repair the world and the chaos that it could otherwise cause. AI holds the potential to amplify human creativity, cure diseases, and democratize knowledge, but it can also, easily spread lies, displace workers, concentrate power, and desensitize us to what it means to be human. I used some Jewish framing to discuss that clash but hopefully it is accessible to all. Religion and philosophy are useful places to find language to describe radical change that lies beyond normal politics — and Jewish thought is often more down-to-earth than philosophy.
In the second piece I asked where are the rabbis, the ethicists, the Jewish technologists? Again, I think the general public has been overwhelmed, religious thinkers and philosophers have been somewhat tech-blinded, and most useful responses have been transactional by folks with vested interests or by people who are able to put a business lens (rather than a Jewish lens or a justice lens) on the subject. Though some Christian, Muslim, and Interfaith institutions have begun to articulate theological responses to AI, and some secular Jewish technologists are active in AI safety, the organized Jewish intellectual world has been surprisingly quiet. Why does this matter? Because Jewish thought has a 3,000-year tradition of grappling with ethical dilemmas, human dignity, limits on power, and the role of creativity and responsibility we have something to offer. But we can’t offer it if we’re not in the conversation.
Finally, in the third article, I looked at the practical side: how synagogues, federations, and nonprofits are experimenting with AI tools for marketing or education, but doing so cautiously — and with exceptions, like the PJCC that I discussed — often behind the curve. Rather than criticize, I was trying to show how the failure to engage fully with AI, both as a tool and a topic, risks sidelining Jewish institutions in a world rapidly being shaped by it. And, through the example of Jewish institutions, I mean to suggest community institutions of all ilks that are governed by human values and a commitment to being better than our past.
What I tried to do with these three pieces is sound a wake-up call. Not because AI is inherently good or bad, but because it’s a tool of such power and ambiguity that it demands serious moral attention and practical, careful action beyond the business community. As in many ways, Jewish life and thought is a canary in the coalmine for the wider Western world. If, despite the political distractions, the Jewish community can show up to think about and implement AI in a constructive, human way, perhaps there’s hope for the world.
If you haven’t played with ChatGPT from OpenAI to see what an automated assistant can feel like, try it out (*but turn on the privacy*). Likewise, try out Claude from Anthropic if you want better writing style or Perplexity for research that actually cites its sources. If you are more advanced and building agents, Manus and Lindy are good entry points. Sadly, none of those companies are paying me for recommendations!
Many thanks to all the people I spoke to for these articles and those whose excellent work I read so I didn’t have to bother them personally.