Yesterday morning I sat reading a book review in The Economist of Deep Utopia – a novel by Nick Bostrom which contemplates a future era in which all human work and activity is rendered redundant by progress in AI and robotics. The reviewer was deeply troubled by the nightmarish scenario and implications of the “terrible boredom” which would ensue once humans no longer have to dedicate the majority of their hours to earning a living and performing necessary chores.
What struck me is the stark contrast of this reviewer’s outlook to that of Rambam in the closing statements of his Mishneh Torah:
“The Sages and the prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come, as explained in Hilchot Teshuvah.
In that era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God.”
It got me wondering how enthusiastic talk of “wanting to bring Mashiach now” should be translated practically. While a lot of focus is understandably placed on maximizing mitzvah performance and debating how and when a Mikdash might be built, how much of our nation would regard the Messianic era of Rambam and our sages as a utopian blessing rather than dystopian dullness?
Who might such strangers be? If it refers to non-Jews, how is this then to be reconciled with a further messianic prophecy of Yeshaya which describes how the nations will rush to learn the word of God from the Jews?
Well, if Nick Bostrom’s vision comes to pass, the “zarim” (strangers) who are tasked with harvesting the abundance and feeding humanity will be mechanized robotic ones, programmed with just the right amount of intelligence for the job. (I’ve recently wondered, during my weekly farm-volunteering in Southern Israel, if Rabbi Shimon would have been placated had he seen people in the modern era picking fruit while listening to hours of Shiurim and Torah podcasts!).
Finally, there are those who raise the question as to whether AI developments could even influence or render redundant the Maimonidean messianic vision of sages dedicating endless hours to Torah study and absorbing divine wisdom. With expected advances of technology, they ask, would the sages not just be able to plug a computer chip into their brains and thus instantly possess all the requisite Torah knowledge?
To understand the fallacy of such an assumption, I believe, one first has to be aware of the nature and function of Torah study (a matter explored at length in a chapter of Talmud Reclaimed). Torah knowledge is not simply a set of facts, laws and statistics which can be memorized or uploaded from a computer drive. Rather, as sources as diverse as Rambam, the Ba’al HaTanya and Rav Soloveitchik show, it is a relationship with God and perspective on the world which arises from immersing oneself in sophisticated Talmudic analysis. From absorbing such wisdom and training one’s mind sufficiently, a person can come to look at the entire world differently – from a more divine perspective.
In fact for Rambam, such a process is critical as a prior stage before one enters the esoteric areas of the Torah known as “Pardes” (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 4:13).
It is hard to imagine that delegating one’s Torah study to a robot can even begin to achieve these benefits. There is a derogatory concept in rabbinic literature of “Chamor Nosei Seforim” (donkey loaded with books) which refers to a putative Torah scholar who has merely memorized numerous sources without having properly understood or internalized their meaning. What we can hope for is that the advent of AI makes information so ubiquitous that all Torah rote-learning becomes unnecessary. If this occurs, it could allow for a shift of focus in the Messianic era to analysis of more profound principles and a utopian era in which we are free to develop our minds to that our “sons and daughters will prophesy” – a vision which represents the pinnacle of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah and vision of Judaism.
First posted on Facebook 2 June 2024.
