Staying Human

Technology's influence over our lives is rapidly increasing, with some even predicting that, in the not-too-distant future, AI will not only outsmart humans but transform all existence into a single super-intelligence or "singularity". This book offers a unique Jewish perspective on AI's ambitions through a dialogue with two major philosophers who stood in a position of conflict to Jews and/or Judaism: Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Both these thinkers have much to say about our technological worldview. Spinoza's rational monism anticipated it in part. Heidegger reacted against it, showing human experience in all its multiplicity. The book argues that both thinkers reveal useful insights for our times. Spinoza offers us a God of oneness, Heidegger a focus on difference and the transcendent. The book argues that we need to hold both these notions simultaneously and sets about exploring these themes within the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish tradition. What emerges is a dynamic theology that seeks to resist the singularity, while embracing its theological implications--a religion of the everyday capable of balancing all aspects of being, while holding tight to a God who is both singular and wholly other, and which urges us, above all, to stay human.