We live in a world that is increasingly intertwined with Artificial Intelligence, a technology that is reshaping our lives in ways we could have never imagined. From self-driving cars to virtual assistants, Artificial Intelligence is altering the fabric of our society, presenting us with opportunities and dilemmas alike. As we gather here today, let us consider the teachings of our Jewish tradition and how they might guide our understanding and approach to Artificial Intelligence. 

Echoing the wisdom of Maimonides, who wrote, “The highest degree of wisdom is benevolence,” we shall delve into the ethical framework necessary to ensure that the incredible advancements in Artificial Intelligence align with our core values as Jews and compassionate human beings.

In a paper written in the 1950s, English mathematician and forefather of modern computer science Alan Turing proposed a way to determine whether a machine can think: A man sits in a room, passing notes back and forth under the door with an unknown respondent, and the man tries to determine if the responses were written by a human or a computer. According to Turing, a machine could be said to think if it was consistently mistaken for a human. 

In the 1990s, the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies started an annual competition based on the Turing test called the Loebner Prize. Programmers would submit chatbots that they programmed to seem human to a panel of judges. The bot that fooled the most judges was awarded the title “The Most Human Computer.”

We’ve heard so much about the promise of artificial intelligence and all it might do for humanity. We’ve also heard dire warnings about AI’s potential to end the world, and we have seen it upend whole sectors of the economy. 

I decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about, which is how I came to create RabbiBot to help me with my High Holy Day sermon in 2023. I enlisted the help of an AI researcher named Muhammad Ahmad to train an AI on a bunch of my old sermons. Then, I asked it to write a sermon about artificial intelligence, a topic on which I had never preached, and the italicized text above is part of what RabbiBot produced.

(Let me offer a word of caution to anyone excited by the possibilities of creating their own RabbiBot: That Maimonides quote above is great, but I cannot find any evidence that Maimonides actually said it. The AI made it up.)

RabbiBot reveals just how quaint the Turing test seems today. The idea that you could be chatting with something and not know if it was human or machine is not far-flung futurism but an imminent reality. It is telling that the last Loebner prize was handed out in 2019. It is no longer that hard to make AI that appears convincingly human. In 1990, Ray Kurzweil wrote about a future he called “the age of intelligent machines.” That future has long since arrived.

AI is blurring the lines between us and our environment in unprecedented ways. We see this in the fact that we’ve come to think of ourselves as machines. When we are tired, we say we just need to shut off our brains for a bit. We process new information, or we search for a memory. We go on vacation to recharge. 

Perhaps, our increasing difficulty discerning between machines and humans says less about the advancement of machines and more about our own narrowing view of humanity. Rodney Brooks, an MIT roboticist, wrote in his 2002 book Flesh and Machines that all of us “overanthropomorphize humans… who are after all mere machines.” A sad and shortsighted statement, it is also the logical conclusion of this merging of human and machine metaphors until one is indistinguishable from the other. 

We live in dehumanizing times. Social media companies ignore any semblance of privacy when they treat us as data to be bought and sold. The gap between the rich and the poor grows ever wider. Basic human rights are up for debate and subject to political gamesmanship. Massive human migrations on a global scale, brought on by climate change, political instability and military conflict challenge our notion of what it means to be a good neighbor. 

Some have suggested that AI might be a solution to these problems. For example, AI is touted for its ability to eliminate structural inequality. There is an AI tool called COMPAS that predicts a criminal’s likelihood of recidivism. COMPAS’ creators tout that their AI does not use race in the data it examines and claim that their program can eliminate any impact of the biases a human judge might hold. Many jurisdictions now use COMPAS to determine sentences for crimes or to grant parole. And yet, a 2016 ProPublica investigation found that the COMPAS system recommended lengthier sentences for Black defendants than white defendants accused of the same crimes. As Meghan O’Gieblyn points out in her excellent book, God, Human, Animal, Machine, despite not explicitly taking race into account, COMPAS still looks at “other information — zip codes, income, previous encounters with police — that are freighted with historic inequality.” Instead of eliminating bias, these machine-made decisions create a feedback loop that reinforces existing social inequalities instead of solving them. The AI cannot create a new world. It is just a mirror that we hold up to the world we have created. A world where dehumanization is the norm. 

In these dehumanizing times, we must stand for something greater. It’s true that if our intelligence is the only characteristic that makes us human, it won’t be long now before the machines can beat us at that game — or at least fake it so well we call the game a draw — but human beings are more than just intelligence. We are more than merely machines. We are beautiful and irreplaceable; we are reflections of the divine mystery. We need to break free of thinking of ourselves in computational metaphors if we are to rediscover that human beings are far more glorious and mysterious than any large language model or neural network could ever dream of being. What we need is a great rehumanizing project. 

Judaism is a rehumanizing project. The mitzvot, the commandments, rehumanize us. They teach us that we are not just here to survive and consume, but that we are invited to live lives of meaning, purpose and connection.

Shabbat is a rehumanizing project. Shabbat is a reminder that there is more to life than what we create and what we produce. Shabbat allows us space to not do, but just be. We are, after all, human “be-ings.”

Prayer is a rehumanizing project. Prayer holds space for the yearnings of our hearts and sorrows of our lives. In communal prayer, we can comfort and be comforted, find strength and offer support. On every page of the prayer book there are new, breathtaking metaphors for human existence. Prayer invites us into mystery, inspiration and gratitude, all deeply human traits.

The Jewish calendar is a rehumanizing project. It offers opportunities to return to the same themes of the human story again and again: freedom and abundance, uncertainty and learning, tribulation and triumph. We revisit the same spots, year after year, to judge how far we’ve come, how much we have grown since we last read these words and performed these rites. 

Machines can learn. But humans can grow.

When we engage in Judaism, we engage in rehumanizing projects that make it clear how we are much more than mere machines. A machine cannot make meaning or wonder. An AI cannot rest, nor can it pray. It cannot take pride in its growth. It cannot be inspired. It cannot be grateful. It cannot marvel at the miracle of creation or hope for a better tomorrow. 

An AI can do a great many tasks, but all of the qualities mentioned above are uniquely human. We need to reawaken these human traits if we are to overcome the forces that deny our uniqueness and diminish our worth. We must reengage in this great rehumanizing project so that the 21st century will not be the age of thinking machines, but the age of moral humans.

Back when the Loebner Prize still existed, they needed humans to interact with the judges and not just machines. So, each year, in addition to declaring “The Most Human Computer,” they would give out a second award — to the human who was mistaken for a machine least often. They called this person “The Most Human Human.” 

Conversing with RabbiBot has reminded me that the most human machine is not far off. In response, we must become the most human humans. 

As the bots that abound around us grow ever smarter, we are called to grow wiser. As they learn to be more lifelike, we must learn to be ever more human.

CORRECTION 4.29.25: This article originally stated that 1990 was the last year the Loebner Prize was awarded, when in fact it was 2019.

Rabbi Joshua R. S. Fixler is an associate rabbi at Congregation Emanu El in Houston and a contributor to the Synagogue Innovation Blog of the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a two-year rabbinic fellowship program directed by Rabbi Sid Schwarz.