Belief in the Future

What happens when you take synagogue music out of the synagogue?

Works mentioned

• Jeremiah Lockwood, Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era

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The Greeks dreamed of automata, the Jews of golems, and now we've coded bots into powerful servants. Can our ancient quest for artificial life reveal our ethical obligations to today’s creations? 

Elly Truitt, who holds a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge, is a historian specializing in the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects across Eurasia and North Africa from antiquity to the early modern period. Her work, including the acclaimed Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (2015), explores the role of automata in medieval culture and the ethical questions they raised about identity and creation.

Reading List:

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In this crossover episode of Belief in the Future with Responsa Radio, host David Zvi Kalman dives into whether using generative AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E is a form of theft, drawing comparisons to the Jewish tradition of responsa. Back in the day, medieval rabbis often quoted other scholars without giving credit, but it was within a self-referential learning community. If today’s machine learning models can swiftly scrub the web, disregarding attribution, what kind of culture are we fostering by relying on their extensive 'knowledge'?

Responsa Radio is a podcast that brings the age-old Jewish tradition of responsa to life in a modern context. Hosted by Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Avi Killip, the show explores contemporary questions through the lens of Jewish law and ethics, engaging listeners in thoughtful discussions that connect ancient wisdom with today’s challenges.

Responsa: A body of Jewish legal literature comprising questions and answers written by rabbis to address issues of Jewish law. This tradition often involves finding historical precedents for contemporary questions, including those related to modern technology.

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What does evangelical Christianity have to say about AI? Quite a lot, according to Jason Thacker. As Director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), he oversaw the creation of the organization’s official AI statement of principles—the first put out by any religious denomination—which recommends moral responsibility towards new technology. Thacker and Kalman discuss how the document came to be, how it might extend to U.S. legislative guidance, what makes it particularly Baptist, and how a Jewish statement might differ.

About our guest:

Jason Thacker is a prominent figure within the Southern Baptist Convention, serving as the Director of Research and Technology Ethics at the ERLC and as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Thacker is the author of several books, including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity.

Reading List:

- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

- Inside Project Maven, the US Military’s AI Project

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Death isn't always an elegant ending. When Muhammad Ahmad, a research scientist with a doctorate in machine learning, learned his father’s diagnosis was terminal, he began to create a text-based AI simulation. Host David Zvi Kalman explores the successes and limitations of this process with Mohammed and Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky, who shares a Jewish take on "DeathGPT" and wonders if ancient scholars could enter the chat.

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Two religious communities invented the same lamp. Why?

In our first episode David Zvi is joined by Lindsay Ems, an expert in the sociological impacts of technology on religious communities. Through the lens of Amish technology and the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews, they explore innovative ways these groups maintain their traditions in an increasingly electrified world.

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