He’s not exactly Orthodox. His views are a bit unique religiously and is connected to his politics in some strange ways. But he’s made clear before that his negative views of AI come in a large part from his particular brand of theism before. See for example the section in his book “The Muse in the Machine” that consists of a fairly rambling theological argument that AI will never exist and is based mainly on quotes from the Bible and Talmud. Jeff Shallit wrote an interesting if slightly obnoxious commentary about how Gelernter’s religion has impacted his thinking.
One curious thing is how rarely Gelernter touches on golems when discussing his religion and AI. I suspect this is because although the classical discussion of golems touches on many of the relevant issues (including discussion of whether golems have souls and whether people have ethical obligations to them), it probably comes across to him as too much like superstitious folklore that he doesn’t like to think of as part of Judaism in a deep sense.
ETA: However, some of Gelernter’s points have validity outside of any religious context. In particular, the point that acting badly to non-conscious entities will encourage people to act badly to conscious ones is valid outside any Talmudic framework. Disclaimer: I’m friends with one of Gelernter’s sons and his niece so I may be a biased source.
He’s not exactly Orthodox. His views are a bit unique religiously and is connected to his politics in some strange ways. But he’s made clear before that his negative views of AI come in a large part from his particular brand of theism before. See for example the section in his book “The Muse in the Machine” that consists of a fairly rambling theological argument that AI will never exist and is based mainly on quotes from the Bible and Talmud. Jeff Shallit wrote an interesting if slightly obnoxious commentary about how Gelernter’s religion has impacted his thinking.
One curious thing is how rarely Gelernter touches on golems when discussing his religion and AI. I suspect this is because although the classical discussion of golems touches on many of the relevant issues (including discussion of whether golems have souls and whether people have ethical obligations to them), it probably comes across to him as too much like superstitious folklore that he doesn’t like to think of as part of Judaism in a deep sense.
ETA: However, some of Gelernter’s points have validity outside of any religious context. In particular, the point that acting badly to non-conscious entities will encourage people to act badly to conscious ones is valid outside any Talmudic framework. Disclaimer: I’m friends with one of Gelernter’s sons and his niece so I may be a biased source.
Thanks for the info.