Volume 42: Number 73
Wed, 30 Oct 2024
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Joel Rich
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 05:30:40 +0200
Subject: [Avodah] AI?
My comment on an AI panel:
Most of the professionals that I?ve heard speak on this topic are pushing
the joint model where the AI assists the professional with input, but the
professional makes the final decisions. What?s always interested in me in
this model is at what point will the professionals lose some of their
native abilities I think of people who no longer can navigate because they
have been using Waze all their lives. How will the young budding scholar
develop the halachic intuition if they don?t have to do their own digging?
Comments?
Bsorot Tovot
Joel Rich
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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 13:50:40 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] AI?
On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 05:30:40AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> My comment on an AI panel:
> Most of the professionals that I've heard speak on this topic are pushing
> the joint model where the AI assists the professional with input, but the
> professional makes the final decisions. What's always interested in me in
> this model is at what point will the professionals lose some of their
> native abilities...
I don't think this is a real threat. The use case you are describing
is forced by how often AI is wrong. "Hallicinates" as they fancifully
put it. So you need an expert to decide what's usable and what isn't.
Picture if you owned a calculator that was wrong 25% of the time. And
because the error could be in any digit, knowing that the answer is
plausible isn't enough to be able to use it. You need to have full
expertise in identifying correct answers in order to know when to
accept a result and when not.
The AI assitant model is only worthwhile in domains where checking an
answer takes a lot less work than producing one. Like the difference
between proofreading and tweaking a letter vs writing your ideas down
in letter form.
So I think the primary skill lost is looking for sources. Which was
already changing radically because of online librariews and search
engines.
R Dr Moshe Koppel is in the middle of a series of blog posts which use
archetypal members of various O communities to frame a dialog about the
nature of halakhah, and what that nature ought to be.
Interestingly, AI came up in today's installment:
Can AI Replace Your Rebbe
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150935589
Teaser:
Yoily clears his throat....
The stereotypically Satmar name is relevant. Continuing a bit down,
I just through that in to explain the following "he":
He pauses, taking in the dubious looks. Someone shifts in their
chair, and Yoily gives a shrug. "Our host mentioned all the changes
we need to adjust to. But he didn't mention the biggest change
of all. AI, I'm talking about AI. Artificial intelligence, if you
need it spelled out. Why? Because it's objective, it doesn't play
favorites. It doesn't care if you're a chossid, Sephardi, Litvak,
or some mix of everything. You ask a question, and it gives you an
answer. A clear answer, no arguments, no haggling."
The host raises an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. "Go on, Yoily. We're
listening."
"You see, the problem with Yiddishkeit today," Yoily continues, "is
that everything's subjective, everyone's got their own rebbe, their
own community, their own way of doing things. It's chaos, and that's
fine when you're a small group, but we're not small anymore. You
can't run a country like that. What we need is one standard. And let
me tell you, AI can give it to us. You take all the halacha, all the
psakim, the minhagim, everything, and you feed it into a machine. The
machine will give you the answer. Not an answer, the answer."
He pauses, his eyes sweeping the room. "And before you start with,
'Oh, but halacha is so complicated, it's got nuance,' believe me,
I know. But that's why AI is perfect. You feed it the nuances, the
exceptions, the whole tangled mess, and it finds a way through. It
finds consistency where humans just find arguments."
A man in the back mutters, "It sounds like a fantasy. How do you
know AI won't just be as confused as the rest of us?"
Yoily smiles, almost pityingly. "Because AI doesn't get tired,
it doesn't get bored, and it doesn't care about the politics. It
processes every single text, every commentary, every debate. It
doesn't forget, it doesn't overlook, and it doesn't need to win an
argument for pride's sake. You ask it a halacha question, and it
gives you the answer based on all the sources, not just the one that
the guy down the street likes best. And this already exists.*"
He looks around, as if daring anyone to argue. The room is silent.
"And here's the beauty of it," he adds, leaning in. "AI levels
the playing field. It doesn't matter if you're some HaRav HaGaon
or just Joe Shmo. You ask a question, and you get the same answer
as everyone else. Everyone is equal before the machine. Everyone
has the same access. Democracy in halacha! You think that's not
revolutionary? Think of it this way. If you've had it with communities
and Rebbes, and I know, intimately, some people who have, you won't
need them any more. Because instead you'll have an AI that does
what they do, only better."
Someone calls out, "And what if the answer is something we don't
like?"
Yoily waves his hand dismissively. "Nu, so we don't like it. Since
when did truth depend on whether we like it? It's not about comfort;
it's about keeping halacha real and relevant. Humans aren't capable
of doing that alone, not anymore. We're too busy bickering over
whose minhag is older or purer or whatever. AI doesn't have those
hangups. It just gets the job done."
He pauses again, his voice lowering, drawing the audience in. He
focuses on Eden. "By the way, young lady - what was your name? ...yes,
Ayden - you mentioned a streamlined halacha in the style of the
Rambam....
*This really does exist. The way to become a beta tester is to leave
a comment below briefly stating your thoughts about this series.
RMK heads the Dicta AI lab at Bar Ilan. In this footnote, he is referring
to RabbAI, a project of one of the students there.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
Author: Widen Your Tent - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF
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Message: 3
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 14:34:16 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Birchat Cohanim
On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 10:40:18PM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Interesting new book: The Priceless Treasure of Bircas Kohanim by Naftali
> Weinberger. (Full disclosure -- R' Weinberger's father is a friend). On page
> 153 he recounts the efforts of the GRA and R Chaim Volozhin to reinstitute
> daily duchening in ashkenaz and the seeming divine intervention (jail and
> fire in the bet medrash) that were taken as a sign to stop them...
One could have taken this far broader:
The Gra's and RCV's motive was fundamentally based on the relative weights
the Gra gives sevara and accepted practice / mimeticism / minhag Yisrael.
If the Gra had (e.g.) the AhS's attitude, he would have been more motivated
to find reasoning and sources that would explain how centuries of rabbanim
allowed the common practice to continue and to spread.
The apparent Siyata diShmaya may have not been just about limiting the
times of Duchaning in Chu"L to Yom Tov (qua "yemei simchah"). It may have
been an attempt to push Litvaks away from this attitude toward text-theory
vs practice.
But then, lo bashamyim hee.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Be happy not because everything is good,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp but because you can see the good side
Author: Widen Your Tent of everything.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF
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Message: 4
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 14:55:42 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Die!
On Tue, Oct 22, 2024 at 11:54:58AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
...
> What emerges from this - in MY mind - is a very different story than the
> medrash I cited above. Moshe did not *allow* his body to die. Rather,
> Hashem commanded and Moshe obeyed.
> I want to suggest that when Rabenu Bechaiye said that humans are unable to
> sleep or die at will, that applies only to ordinary humans. It does not
> apply to humans who could survive 40 days and nights without food or water,
> and certainly not to humans who were able to travel to a place from where
> they could see Hashem's "back"....
The Ran in derashos 3, 4 and 5 writes about "Velo qam navi od biYisrael
keMosheh..." (Devarim 34:10) What about free will?
See:
https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.3.3
https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.4.7
https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.5.7
The Ran holds that Moshe was a neis, a beryah bifnei atzmo. (RYBS may have
chosen the idiom "sui generis", it was one of his usuals.) The reason
why the pasuq can guarantee that one else in history would every reach
Moshe's level of nevu'ah is because Moshe was made with a relationship
between seikhel and guf that Hashem was saying He would never do again.
Moshe's seikhel was muvdal, like a mal'ach's, and it rode in a body without
the connection to it.
Notably, elsewhere in derashah 5
(<https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.5.16>) the Ran writes that
despite being an idolater, was on a higher level than Canaanim and
more fit to raise imahos because his error was intellectual, not in
middos. And errors in thought can be fixed using the seikhel alone. But
middos also involve the body. (I am guessing the Ran is invoking 4 humor
theory, but we would get the same result talking about brain chemistry,
hormones and neural wiring.)
So he seems to be developing a general theory about the body-mind problem.
(Not giving opinions about where it's going, because my chaburah on the
subject is on a pre-Aliyah pause. I'll let you know when we get at least
past derashah 7, which I know revists many of the themes of 5.)
I realize the Ran's saying that Moshe's constiution and ability to have a
unique kind of nevu'ah was a neis throws out a lot of sermons. Rabbanim,
Kiruv teachers, and some Mashigichim like boasting about how in Judaism
all the heroes are normal people who used their potential to be someone
great.)
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Feeling grateful to or appreciative of someone
http://www.aishdas.org/asp or something in your life actually attracts more
Author: Widen Your Tent of the things that you appreciate and value into
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF your life. - Christiane Northrup, M.D.
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