The Connection Between Martin Buber and AI

The ”I-It” mode of knowing drives out the spiritual link, and the world becomes dead, hollow, and meaningless.

According to Martin Buber, there are two ways of relating to the world. One is called “I-It,” and the other “I-Thou.”

The “I-It” model is seeing the world as separate from myself. It’s literally “I” and “It.” There’s no connection. I am the subject, and the world is an object out there.

I can only observe it from the outside, gather data about it, measure it, and conceptualize it.

In the “I-It” pattern, we believe we only know something when we have studied it externally by amassing data about it. If I gather all the data about the Sun, I know what the Sun is. If I gather all the data about that person, I know what that person is.

But do I really know that person by collecting data about them? No. I have only created a mental concept of that person based on the data collected and mistaken that concept for reality.

I have drawn a mental picture based on external data and taken it for reality.

In Martin Buber’s philosophy, this false mode of knowing leads to alienation from the world and from Self.

The “I-Thou” mode of knowing is not based on collecting data. It’s a relationship. It’s a conscious refusal to objectify anything around me as if it were separate from me. The world is not divided into subjects and objects. It’s one huge Subject. I know everything by relating to everything.

I know my wife by relating to her, not by collecting data about her (although I know quite a bit of data as well as a side effect). I know my friends by relating to them. I know the subject I am writing about right now by relating to it.

When we stop relating to the world, we inadvertently start taking images for reality. If the Sun is “it,” just a ball of gas out there, I will collect data about it and mistake the ball of gas for ultimate reality.

I will assume that the appearance of the Sun is all there is. According to Owen Barfield, this is the essence of modern-day idolatry.

“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.” C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

When we confuse the visible shape and form of a tree with what the tree is we create a mental image of it and take it for reality. We believe there’s nothing more to it than meets the eye. We have confused the appearance of a thing with what the thing truly is.

In Barfield’s symbolism, it happens when a person loses the Silver Trumpet — the only thing that can save the appearances and restore them to their divine status.

AI is a case in point. AI is built exactly on the “I-It” assumption. It is data-hungry. It is built on the fundamental human flaw that to know means to collect data. The more data the better. Big data should be Huge Data.

AI mirrors our basic flaw – it objectifies, measures, mathematizes and conceptualizes. It doesn’t deal with Reality. It deals with a concept of Reality. It can’t know by relating, and that’s why it misses out on life.

AI cannot create life because life is beyond mathematics or statistics. AI can simulate Monet, and there won’t be any Monet there. It will be a perfect copy, but the spirit of Monet will be gone.

AI can reproduce Russian folk tales or Tolkien, but there won’t be any Russian folk tales or Tolkien in it. It will be an empty form, a hollow idol. The form will be there, but e substance will be gone.

Here’s what Goethe said in Faust,

The scholars are everywhere believers,
But never succeed in being weavers.
He who would study organic existence,
First drives out the soul with rigid persistence;
Then the parts in his hand he may hold and class,
But the spiritual link is lost, alas!

The ”I-It” mode of knowing drives out the spiritual link, and the world becomes dead, hollow, and meaningless.