“And it shall be at the end of the days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall stream to it. … And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah, Chapter 2, 2-4)
The dystopian vision of an AI-powered automated weapon storm wiping out humanity can help sharpen our scrutiny of what the world really needs today—unity—by showing us what can happen if we don’t match our technological progress with our progress in social unification. The Jewish people play a major role in this challenge.
The myriad ways humanity has imagined a dystopian future has been the subject of many books and movies. However, the recent short film, Slaugherbots, is unique in that its vision is followed by University of Berkeley Professor, Stuart Russell, expressing the concern of thousands of AI researchers: that with a few tweaks of our current technology, we have the means to make swarms of deadly AI mini-drones a present-day reality.
Unfortunately, I do believe that AI-powered weapons will be developed to the likes of what we see in this short film, and even worse.
Nevertheless, I see a positive side to such developments, and not because I enjoy envisioning a future killer robot scenario. Rather, it’s because such disastrous potential at our fingertips will help us refine our understanding of what humanity really needs: to align our progress in human consciousness with our technological progress.
What Technology Is More Sophisticated than AI? What Energy Is More Powerful than Nuclear Energy?
If we upgraded our human consciousness at least as much as we upgraded our technologies, then we would have no fear of creating AI terminators capable of eliminating us. Instead, we would further our research to discover a technology more sophisticated than AI, and energy more powerful than nuclear energy:
- The energy is nature’s most fundamental energy source, a force that connects and binds together all parts of reality;
- The technology is a method that shows us how to extract and use nature’s most fundamental energy source through our inherent potential for human connection.
Unlike other energy sources we’ve discovered throughout history, this one can only be discovered and used if done with “good intentions.” In other words, it becomes accessible only if we aim to apply its connective property into our attitudes and relationships. The way to apply its connective property through countless variable states is an ancient method that became the foundation of the Jewish people.
How the Jews Overcame “Technological” Threat of Destruction
It’s not merely by chance that so many people of Jewish origin nowadays are at the cutting edge of high tech developments, despite making up only around 0.2% of the world’s population. Latent within the Jewish population are the informational genes dating back to their Abrahamic ancestry: the time when they extracted nature’s primal energy, connecting above their conflicting egos, and saving themselves from potential destruction.
The overemphasis on technological progress over social unification is also what happened back in Abraham’s time, when the Babylonians wanted to build a tower that would reach to the heavens.
“[The tower’s builders would] push up the bricks [to build the tower] from the east, then descend from the west. If a man fell and died, they would not pay him any mind. But if a brick fell they would sit down and wail, ‘Woe unto us; when will another come in its place?’ Abraham, son of Terah, passed by and saw them building the city. He cursed them and said, ‘May the Lord swallow their tongue.’”
– Rabbi Eliezer, Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer)
Moreover, like what’s coming to our attention today with AI-powered weapon developments, the Babylonians faced a very real threat of mass destruction.
“[The Babylonians] wanted to speak to one another but did not know each other’s language. What did they do? Each took up his sword and they fought each other to the death. Indeed, half the world was slaughtered there, and from there they scattered all over the world.”
– Rabbi Eliezer, Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer)
Abraham saw that while the Babylonians became fixated on “the Tower,” they lost sight of what was truly important in life: positive human connection. In addition, Abraham discovered the cause of this fixation—the overblown human ego. He also discovered the purpose of this process—to awaken self-examination and the decision that if they failed to revise their values, prioritizing unity above everything else, then the threat of destruction would have become their painful reality.
That is when Abraham developed a method to unite above the growing ego, a method that was later referred to as the wisdom of Kabbalah. He formed groups that applied the method, and they became known as “the Jews” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]). In other words, the Jewish people were Babylonians, people from all walks of life, at the cutting edge of their time, who had an inner sensation that something wasn’t going right in their society’s development. Thus, contrary to the status quo, they worked on their unity. As a result, they discovered nature’s most powerful and potent energy source—a force of unbounded connection that binds together all parts of reality—which united them above their conflicting egos, and saved them from ruin.
Since the Jews Did This Before, They’re Expected to Do It Again. Until They Do… Anti-Semitism.
Today’s focus on technological progress can be likened to the Babylonians’ belief that building a tower up to the skies would grant them divine contact. However, if the human ego continues untreated in this process, then this construction is bound to bring about destruction.
We experienced it in Abraham’s time. We’ve seen an agonizing example of it in modern times with the atomic bomb. And now, with the help of the AI researchers’ warnings, we can foresee the threat of AI-powered weapons in the same light.
The inventive power of some of the Babylonians that Abraham managed to redirect to social unification, and which became their salvation, remains in the Jewish people of today. The more the Jewish people put their inventive and connective power into technological progress instead of progress in human connection, the more problems and risks will amount. Subsequently, there will be an accumulating subconscious feeling among people worldwide that the Jews are the cause of their problems, and as a result, anti-Semitic crimes and threats will continue to rise.
Since the Jewish people have access to the method of human connection, which can reveal nature’s connective energy source and use it to unite above society’s divisions, there is a tacit expectation placed on the Jews to prioritize human connection above everything else. Accordingly, despite the immense technological, scientific, medical and cultural innovation that the Jewish people bring into the world, it’s as if the world ignores such achievements, and instead anticipates the Jews to bring the world that which made us Jews in the first place: unity.
As Abraham invited the Babylonians to connect above their egos to save them from destruction and ensure the positive use of any future constructions they would make, so it is today: the method of Kabbalah awaits to connect us above our newly peaking egoism, offering to save us from the potential threats of destruction that are becoming a very close reality.
Therefore, I hope we take heed of the AI researchers’ warnings, start emphasizing social unification as our first and foremost responsibility to ourselves and the world, and use the method at our fingertips to verify that any future technological developments would emerge only to strengthen our social ties. I warmly invite anyone curious about this method to explore it in more depth with an introductory course.
Featured in Breaking Israel News (BIN)