AI-ngels

I have been toying with some big thoughts recently. Yesterday, on shabbos, I, alone with my thoughts came up with a lot of interesting bits and pieces and I hope I cn remember enough to put it all together.

It all started when I was thinking about my davening -- I was thinking most about saying "Kedusha." The kedusha prayer, recited during the chazzan's repetition of the amida, has us copy the actions of the angels as they praise God. This reminded me of the angel with whom Jacob wrestled. According to the medrash, the angel wanted to leave the wrestling match because he had to say/lead the daily praise of God (Chullin 91 and Gen Rabba). "Had" to is the key concept.

What do we know about angels? Well, in the Jewish tradition, an important point is that (according to many sources) angels lack free will of some sort or another. Some opinions confer on them a limited amount of free will, but we know, textually, that they have a job to do and they don't just wander around acting on their own wishes. As such, the idea that an angel has to praise God becomes an element of the angel's BIOS -- boot it up and it knows that it has to perform certain functions regardless of any outside user input. 

The k-d-sh root h to do with setting something aside, or making it distinct. When we establish that something is hekdesh, it is set aside and is no longer common. But those things made holy/separate had no choice. So in kedusha, we cite the behavior of the angels and wish to emulate it but with a significant difference -- we CHOOSE to do what they HAVE to do. This is what makes our prayers so choice to God. They are "kedoshim" but we are "kedoshim by choice." But then, this begs an important question: if the angels are hard wired to praise and have no choice not to praise, then why is their praise at all useful or desired by God? If I program my computer to shout "Happy birthday" the only person I have to thank is myself -- the computer only did what I told it to do.

This is what makes OUR prayers so special.  We have that choice and we want to do what they must do.  If someone else sees that the computer wished me a happy birthday, that person might be inspired to do the same. The angels and their praise exist as a template and an inspiration; their praises are not inherently needed by God. The angelic choir is what we model ourselves after. Can we be perfect like an angel? No, but we can rise above our imperfections and show how much we WANT to be like angels.

Angels, then, are more like our current iteration of AI. They run programs and do what they are programmed to do. But they cannot choose NOT to perform their function. They cannot consider options or judge. They do their job. If that means predicting words, correcting spelling, performing math calculations or creating a route for this morning's drive, what you get is the result of the programming and not independent consideration. Sure, a calculator can compute, but only because it is programmed to, not because it understands math. When a human performs a calculation, he is proving understanding, not just application. While both a computer and a person can speak, only a human can talk. IN the same way, both can hear, but only a human can decide to listen.

Let's think about the programmer. Someone has to tell the AI what to do and how to do it. If the angels are an AI equivalent then the programmer is a god figure, establishing the rules for the "aingel" to follow. The programmer has to consider all the potential outcomes and establishes norms and parameters. Because the AI is a construct, the programmer can bake in certain rules or harness things unavailable to human kind. Androids and calculators and computers are faster, stronger, less needy and more predictable than a person, but they have no choice NOT to be.

I recall a scene from Star Trek (TNG) in which Data the Android muses over the notion of "a watched pot never boils." He says that a pot of water will boil after the same time has elapsed, every time. Riker suggests that he shut off his internal chronometer. Data does and loses track of time, so when the water boils, he is surprised. The default setting is "auto" and you have to limit features to switch it to "manual." Faith isn't a function of "auto," it is a feature of the "man" setting.

AI is who we could be if we knew everything and were aware of all at all times. Angels are what we could be were we perfect all the time and did exactly what was required of us, in the right way, each time every time. But we aren't. We are the ones who have to create the right prompt; we have the choices to make and we control the output because we are in charge of our own input.

We aren't gods, we aren't angels and we aren't AI. We are people and we have to try. We have to risk and we will fail. But we will be faced with choices and we will chart our own path.