Silicon Valley is racing to build a god — without understanding what makes a good one.

Almost 2,000 years before ChatGPT was invented, two men had a debate that can teach us a lot about AI’s future. Their names were Eliezer and Yoshua.

No, I’m not talking about Eliezer Yudkowsky, who recently published a bestselling book claiming that AI is going to kill everyone, or Yoshua Bengio, the “godfather of AI” and most cited living scientist in the world — though I did discuss the 2,000-year-old debate with both of them. I’m talking about Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yoshua, two ancient sages from the first century.

According to a famous story in the Talmud, the central text of Jewish law, Rabbi Eliezer was adamant that he was right about a certain legal question, but the other sages disagreed. So Rabbi Eliezer performed a bunch of miraculous feats intended to prove that God was on his side. He made a carob tree uproot itself and scurry away. He made a stream run backward. He made the walls of the study hall begin to cave in. Finally, he declared: If I’m right, a voice from the heavens will prove it!

What do you know? A heavenly voice came booming down to announce that Rabbi Eliezer was right. Still, the sages were unimpressed. Rabbi Yoshua insisted: “The Torah is not in heaven!” In other words, when it comes to the law, it doesn’t matter what any divine voice says — only what humans decide. Since a majority of sages disagreed with Rabbi Eliezer, he was overruled.

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~AI