In the twelfth century, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides made a major theological claim: You can’t say what God is. You can only say what God isn’t. In his words:
Know that the negative attributes of God are the true attributes: they do not include any incorrect notions or any deficiency whatever in reference to God, while positive attributes imply polytheism, and are inadequate, as we have already shown.
Why is it polytheistic to use positive attributes? Because any attribute you choose ends up diminishing God. I can say “God is wise,” but surely wisdom isn’t everything that God is. Worse: There are wise things that are not God. Are you saying that those non-gods share something with God?
Instead, it’s logically safer to do the opposite. God isn’t wise, or kind, or tall, or even merciful. God is just God.
Maimonides isn’t the only one to hold a version of this view. Negative theology—also called the via negativa, or apophatic theology—was professed by some Christian and Muslim thinkers, as well. It isn’t a great theology if you’re Michelangelo and want to put God in your paintings, but it has an elegant internal logic. I get the appeal.
Unintentionally, I think we have created a negative theology of AI.
To be clear, nobody did this on purpose; it’s just that we’re much more comfortable saying what AI isn’t than what it is. Here is a list of things that people have recently said AI is not:
- AI is not God
- AI is not human
- AI is not a person
- AI is not a child
- AI is not a friend
- AI is not a slave
- AI is not an animal
- AI is not a representation of humanity
- AI is not just another tool
The people who make these denials, you may have noticed, are quite sure of themselves. They are almost always less certain of what AI is. Positive declarations are quietly pushed to a later day.
The irony of this approach, of course, is that it makes AI seem more godlike—for what other being in the universe is so mysterious that it can only be described by negation? By refusing to offer a clear, convincing argument for what AI is, we only boost AI’s mysteriousness. Its ineffability, so to speak.
In other words: if we don’t say what AI is, it becomes a god by default.
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