Review of ‘Like Silicon from Clay’ by Michael Rosen
I’m not Jewish, but I’ve been fascinated by the golem story—the tale of the creation of a defender of the Jews who is made of clay by a mystic magician—since junior high school, when I learned about the 1920 German Expressionist film of that name. After all, what bookish teenager wouldn’t want a strong, silent protector ready to repel all bullies and tormentors on command? Later on, my wife Beth introduced me to S. Ansky’s pathbreaking Yiddish play concerning the evil spirit that supposedly inhabits its helpless victims, The Dybbuk.
So when I was asked to review a book on golems and dybbuks, as well as maggids, the lesser-known angelic spirit from Jewish folklore and legend—a book that ties them directly to artificial intelligence—I was intrigued.
After reading Michael Rosen’s Like Silicon from Clay, I am still intrigued, but not convinced. Rosen’s central argument is that the different ways we look at AI and machine learning (ML) and our general desire to make sure “that AI operates in an ethical and responsible fashion” can draw inspiration from these Jewish supernatural phenomena, and that “we can distill the best of each approach to arrive at a coherent policy.”
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