Happy Passover!

Whether or not you are Jewish, and whether or not you have a Seder, Passover is a wonderful holiday. It just never hurt anyone to have the thought once a year, "Hey I remember: once I was a slave, and now I'm not." It's probably the oldest religious ritual in the history of Western Civilization.

This morning I drove my son-in-law to the airport, and we started talking about AI (artificial intelligence). But intelligence can never be artificial, it's either intelligence or not. An artificial thing was made by intelligence, or an intelligence; but a thing is not the cause of itself. Only intelligence, or an intelligence, can be cause. As we make more and more machines, and more complex machines that we organize more and more, and as gargantuan oceans of data can go into the machines, the machines may begin to seem intelligent. Perhaps even, intelligences will go into the machines. A human body is after all, a machine.

It is frequently emphasized in the Seder ritual, "And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt not by the hands of an angel, and not by the hands of a seraph, and not by the hands of a messenger, but the Holy One, blessed be he, himself, in his own glory and in his own person." It is a good lesson, and ultimately we, too, must be willing to carry out the hardest tasks in life ourselves, not by messengers or seraphs or angels, and not by machines that we pretend do the work for us.

Passover should cause us each to look around at the machines we use, to take an accounting of all the things we believe they do for us and at least wonder whether we could still do those things ourselves. I will travel to Arizona from Chicago this month, on an airplane. Could I walk there? I should be able!

What about the crazy people locked up at Elgin Mental Health Center? Could I deal with them in my own home, among my own family and friends? I'd better be able!

What about this body? Could I love and cooperate without it? I hope so!

It wasn't ancient tribes or my ancestors who were brought out of Egypt: I was brought out. I was a slave there and now I am free! Responding to that miracle means acting like I am free. I must responsibly declare: there is no such thing as "artificial" intelligence. I must constantly recognize the complete difference between a machine and a person.

I must decide TO BE. Then to assume a viewpoint and create space and communicate myself, without messengers, seraphs or angels. Nothing more, nothing less.

Next year in Jerusalem!