Staying Human
A Jewish Theology for the Age of Artificial Intelligence
- Theology
- Science & Faith
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2021
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Publisher's Description
Futurists speculate that we are heading towards a 'singularity,' where AI will outsmart human beings, and humanity will coalesce into a single, ever-expanding mind for which data is everything. The idea mirrors conceptions of God as everything, singular, and all-knowing. But is this idea of the singularity, or God, good for humanity? Oneness has its attractions. But what space does it leave for individuality and difference? In this book, British-Jewish theologian, Harris Bor, explores these questions by applying approaches to oneness and difference found in the thought of philosophers, Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), to the challenges of religious belief and practice in the era of AI. What emerges is a dynamic 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.
Endorsements (4)
“Staying Human offers an original, well-reasoned, constructive Jewish theology that bridges technoscience and religion, transcendence and immanence, universality and particularity, and reason and the imagination. . . . Bor thoughtfully argues that the Halakhic way of life enables its practitioners to resist the totalizing tendencies of contemporary technology and experience the particularistic, time-bound, embodied human existence that remains open to transcendence. All readers . . . will find Staying Human a provocative and refreshing work.”
“Harris Bor has produced a gripping and beautifully written investigation into the meaning of religious thought and practice in an age of Artificial Intelligence. His words bring philosophy and religion to life.”
“Coming out of Jewish tradition and looking forward with hope to a future ostensibly determined by the ever more rapid and inexorable advance of science and technology, Harris Bor calls two improbable witnesses, Spinoza and Heidegger. His book will appeal to thoughtful Jewish readers, and to others who share his concern for the future of humanity.”
“Harris Bor offers a stimulating and energized engagement with technology from a Jewish perspective, which both displays creative insight into life’s big questions and seeks to build a religious practice based upon them. Drawing on philosophies from the East and West, he shows how Jewish spirituality simultaneously seeks the God of everything and the God that loves difference, and how these concepts can be used to navigate our technological world and are fundamental to an understanding of it. The work is bound to be of interest to the academic and religious seeker alike.”
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