What We Can All Learn From How Jewish Law Defines Personhood in A.I., Animals, and Aliens

A century of science fiction should be enough to demonstrate that we’re fascinated by the prospect of creating true artificial life.

David Zvi Kalman

July 25, 2022

July 25, 2022

David Zvi Kalman

Dr. David Zvi Kalman is Scholar in Residence and Director of New Media at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where he was also a member of the inaugural cohort of North American David Hartman Center Fellows. David Zvi leads the Kogod Research Center’s research seminar on Judaism and the Natural World. David Zvi holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of Toronto. His research touches on Jewish

Jewish Ethics and the Public Sphere, Judaism and Modernity, Law

“Earlier this year, a Google engineer named Blake Lemoine made headlines for a particularly outlandish claim: After engaging in conversation with a highly sophisticated algorithm named LaMDA, he decided that the A.I. was in fact a sentient being, and as a result it deserved legal personhood. Since Lemoine made this claim, Google has fired him, and almost everyone has concluded that he is clearly wrong, but this clearly-wrong claim nonetheless launched a barrage of articles, many with the premise “Yes, but what if he wasn’t?”

Read in complete article in Slate.

What We Can All Learn From How Jewish Law Defines Personhood in A.I., Animals, and Aliens

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