Humanity on the threshold of creation 

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is both a time of reflection and renewal and marks the anniversary of the creation of the world according to Jewish tradition. It is worth contemplating that humanity itself may be on the brink of becoming creator of new worlds. Well-known AI expert, visionary and entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil has long predicted an imminent “singularity” when computers will reach our level of multi-dimensional general intelligence, including ethics, curiosity, creativity, and self-awareness, as well as other aspects of intelligence and then rapidly surpass our capabilities. AI research started around 1950, and progress has dramatically accelerated in the past few years. This has fundamental theological and other implications.

One implication of emerging AI capabilities and other technological advances is the likely future ability to create societies of sentient, synthetic non-biological beings that could evolve, possibly under certain constraints. Such to us virtual worlds teeming with all sorts of synthetic life would be sustained by long-term and possibly permanent very high resolution computer simulation. At some phase of their development, such beings would be likely to perceive us as their creator. If the simulation were to be carefully built, they would not be able to detect anything outside their immediate reality or determine by any means whether they are “real” or simulated. Neither would we humans.

In fact, computers can emulate the command set and other features of other types of computers, and, if the simulation is done carefully, a computer program can’t determine whether it is running on a ‟real” or simulated computer. As is the case with humans, simulated beings can’t generally emerge from a layer of reality into a higher, more ‟real” layer.

There is no Layer of Reality warp or wormhole, unless the capability is built into the simulation. Enormous “computational energy” would be required to simulate a synthetic world with its societies of sentient beings and other life forms, scenery, physical forces, and place in its surrounding synthetic universe.

Super-tiny systems

If we may soon be capable of creating synthetic worlds, might we ourselves exist within a similar construct? This philosophical question – often called the simulation hypothesis – raises profound implications about the nature of reality.

In 1959, Nobel prize-winning physicist, artist, bongo player, safe opener Richard Feynman presented an enticing vision about making super-tiny machines in his famous CalTech talk: There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics2, a theme he returned to 35 years later in his Idiosyncratic Thinking seminar talk Tiny Machines. Feynman’s vision of super-tiny machines paved the way for nanotechnology, a field that could revolutionize computing and enable the creation of highly efficient, energy-saving systems necessary for sustaining synthetic worlds.

As shown later, nanotechnology may have a fundamental role in humanity creating ‟worlds” since it would require minimal energy and space for the future computer systems that would sustain such worlds. The vision is that super-tiny systems, including powerful nano-computers, may be synthesized by assembling molecules rather than fabricated in huge and complex factories as are microchips. In this vision, the resulting nano-computers could be smaller than most human cells, trillions or more could be assembled inexpensively again and again, and their operation would require a super-tiny fraction of the space and energy demanded by today’s computers.

To appreciate the potential, each of us humans is composed of an estimated 30 trillion or more various cells, each with its sub-systems. It may help to visualize an apple, which has an estimated 50 million or more cells and requires relatively small amounts of energy to create by a tree. Amazingly, the apple “manufacturing process” is succinctly described and controlled by a few millimeter-sized “ordinary” system: the seed, which can produce an apple tree and it in turn many apples yearly with their seeds. We may in the future regard trillions of nano-computers similarly to common items like apples, potatoes. Such constellations may provide an unprecedented magnitude of computational power and could potentially sustain permanent, highly realistic, feature-rich simulated worlds with their beings. It’s noteworthy that such synthetic worlds are created ex-nihilo, out of no matter, only from the minds of the programmers encapsulated in programs and their dynamics, which do the actual creation.

Humanity’s divine mandate

The wildly imaginative Polish fantasy fiction writer, Stanislaw Lem, wrote a collection of entertaining short stories, much like medieval fables, published in his 1965 book The Cyberiad, about the adventures and misadventures of two non-unionized and superbly independent cosmic constructors, Trurl and Klapaucius, who were robots and a credit to their race. It’s worth reading the story The Seventh Sally as a case study in simulated worlds. It describes Trurl creating a very small simulated world with even smaller simulated beings and irresponsibly presenting it with noble intent to a cosmic despot with unexpected consequences, which Klapaucius foresaw, but too late to stop Trurl. It’s important to consider what lessons we might learn from Trurl’s mistake and how they apply to our own potential future as creators.

As we head into the Jewish celebration of the creation of our world, we’d do well to ask: What can we learn from the Creator about being creators? For example, would we provide the beings we create with a guidebook like the Torah regulating their lives, or let them determine their own guiding frameworks? Would we instruct them to pray and bring sacrifices to us? Would we mete out punishments if they fail to worship us or follow our guidance? Would we devise something like a soul devoid of ‟matter” in the constructed world, and what would be its role? Would such synthetic souls outlive synthetic beings? What would be our responsibilities toward the beings we create?

Some may mistakenly think it is sacrilege to even contemplate such matters. The profound thinker Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik wrote otherwise in his book Halakhic Man (1984). According to him, it is not accidental that the Torah starts by relating the creation of the world. He remarked that it could have started many different ways with other important themes, and, since this beginning was chosen, creation and specifically creation of worlds is possibly the most important lesson and commandment. He wrote:

“Man is obliged to engage in creation and renewal of the cosmos.”

“This wondrous spectacle of the creation of worlds is the Jewish people’s eschatological vision, the realization of all its hopes.”

“The peak of religious ethical perfection to which Judaism aspires is man as creator.”

Rabbi Soloveitchik emphasized humanity’s divine mandate to engage in creation and renewal, suggesting that becoming creators aligns with our spiritual purpose. How might such a view guide us in shaping the worlds we create? As we stand on the brink of creation, we must ask ourselves: What kind of creators will we be? We should approach this unprecedented responsibility with wisdom, compassion, and a deep sense of our ethical obligations. Let us contemplate not only our past but also our potential future as creators. What might it mean for humanity to create beings in our own image, as described in Genesis? Could we inadvertently assume the role of a divine creator, with all the responsibilities and challenges it entails? What kind of worlds will we choose to create, and what values will we imbue in them? It is time to consider the profound responsibilities that come with the power to create.

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Larry Pfeffer, Jerusalem, with valuable input from ChatGPT