The New Golden Calf: When AI Becomes an Idol

The danger of artificial intelligence is not that it becomes human.

The greater danger may be that humans begin treating it as something more than human.

The Qur’anic story of Moses عليه السلام and the Golden Calf is usually read as a story about idolatry in its clearest form: a people who had seen signs, crossed the sea, and yet, in Moses’ عليه السلام absence, turned toward something manufactured with their own hands.

But the story also contains a more general warning about human cognition.

We become impressed by it.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the creation acquires authority over the creator.

That is the danger artificial intelligence presents today.

Not because a language model is literally a deity. It obviously is not.

But because human beings can display toward machines some of the psychological behaviours traditionally associated with idols:

Attribution of capacities the object does not possess.

And perhaps most importantly:

the surrender of judgment.

The Calf That Made a Sound

The Qur’an describes al-Samiri producing:

“a calf, a body that had a lowing sound.” Qur’an 20:88

The Tafsir tradition discusses what exactly produced this extraordinary sound. Some commentators understood the calf as a body through which air produced the sound; other exegetical accounts understood the event differently. Ma’arif al-Qur’an explicitly records this difference among commentators, while Ibn Kathir transmits from Ibn Abbas (r.a.) the explanation that wind passed through the object and produced its lowing. (Quran.com⁠)

For our purposes, the critical point is not the mechanism.

It is the epistemic effect.

The thing made an impressive sound.

And people attributed to it a status vastly greater than the phenomenon justified.

They were presented with an output.

They confused the output with authority.

That is precisely where the analogy with artificial intelligence becomes useful.

The Golden Calf had its sound.

The Qur’an Immediately Applies a Test

The Qur’an does something remarkable immediately afterwards.

It does not answer spectacle with spectacle.

It asks whether the object can actually satisfy the properties being attributed to it:

“Did they not see that it could not return them a word, nor did it have power to harm them or benefit them?” Qur’an 20:89

Ibn Kathir emphasises exactly this deficiency: the calf could not answer them when addressed, nor possess power over their worldly or ultimate affairs. (Quran.com⁠).

Now we must acknowledge, AI can return a word, and like nuclear energy, it can benefit when guided and used properly by humans. The key here is – when used properly by humans. I am not debating the usefulness of AI, indeed, I used it to write this article, I am debating the place we give it in our heart.

Surah al-A’raf makes the test even more pointed:

“Did they not see that it could neither speak to them nor guide them to a way? Yet they took it, and they were wrongdoers.” Qur’an 7:148

The verse is striking because it identifies the problem as one of misattributed capability. I will make this clear in a below example which is trending over the internet right now.

The object performed something impressive.

Could it answer in the relevant sense?

Could it justify the authority people had projected onto it?

The Qur’an says no. (Quran.com⁠)

That test should be applied relentlessly to AI.

What does this machine appear able to do?

What does it actually possess?

Ẓulm: Putting Something Where It Does Not Belong

Surah al-A’raf concludes its description by saying:

“They took it, and they were ẓālimūn.” Qur’an 7:148

This brings us to one of the most useful concepts for thinking about AI.

It is commonly translated as injustice, wrongdoing or oppression. Classical discussions also describe its underlying meaning as:

وضع الشيء في غير موضعه

placing something somewhere other than its proper place. (Islamic Studies⁠)

This is an extraordinarily useful framework for technology.

AI itself is not the problem.

The problem begins when we put it somewhere it does not belong.

A calculator belongs beside arithmetic.

A microscope belongs beside human sight.

Electricity belongs in the service of human activity.

The internet belongs as an infrastructure for communication.

Artificial intelligence belongs as a powerful instrument for extending human capacity.

But when AI moves from assistant to unquestionable authority, something has been misplaced.

When probability becomes morality, something has been misplaced.

When prediction becomes judgment, something has been misplaced.

When generated language is mistaken for truth simply because it sounds convincing, something has been misplaced.

When a machine becomes an excuse by which human beings evade responsibility, something has been misplaced.

The central ethical question of AI may therefore be remarkably simple:

Where does this thing belong?

AI Is Made From Our Own Ornaments

The analogy with the Golden Calf becomes even more striking because artificial intelligence did not descend independently upon humanity.

The Qur’an says of the Israelites’ calf:

“The people of Moses made, after him, from their ornaments a calf…” Qur’an 7:148

The modern language model is, metaphorically, made from our ornaments too.

Human scientific papers.

Its training data contains enormous amounts of the intellectual residue of civilisation.

Then something........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)