Can Robots Get Religion?

[Roundtable: Robots Get Religion]

A few months ago, I flew to New York for an event with Judith Shulevitz and Amy E. Schwartz at the New York Jewish Book Festival. There, we were to discuss the subject(s) of robots, golems, and A.I., and whether any or all of these constructs might someday develop what we humans would recognize as religious feeling. The result was a fun and freewheeling conversation that, as you might imagine, dragged in all sorts of references and ideas. Ms. Shulevitz, who writes for The Atlantic among other publications (and whose book The Sabbath World I'm currently reading), has written quite a bit about our relationships with our A.I. assistants like Alexa and Siri, and it was fascinating to speculate with her and Ms. Schwartz about what an A.I.'s religion could (and couldn't) look like. Ms. Schwartz, Moment Magazine's Books and Opinions Editor and the editor of the magazine's popular “Ask the Rabbis” column, brought in Asimov's Laws of Robotics, and asked what it is, exactly, that we're projecting onto our own creations when we tell stories of them acquiring free will. It was the sort of conversation that I mull over long afterwards, turning bits of it over in my head. I'm very happy that Moment has published a condensed transcript as part of their summer issue on artificial intelligence, so you can experience it for yourself!