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Someone I davened with when I was living in Philly, David Zvi Kalman, has started a podcast called Belief in the Future about religion and technology. I'd glad I'm still connected with him on Facebook because I'm really enjoying the podcast, even if I am behind on it (it hasn't been a great month for podcasts for me) and I don't think I would have found it otherwise. I'm not very good at finding new podcasts, or at listening to them when I do.
The second episode of the podcast is titled "Ghost in the Machine" and explores using AI to create bots of the dead. (Yes, someone has done it. Now. It's real. Not like on TV, but it's been done.)
At the end of the episode, after talking to a pioneer in the technology and a rabbi who connects it to Judaism in a really cool way, David Zvi turns to the practical:
"Companies that offer simulations need to be sensitive. And people who use their services shouldn't suggest that the Luddites who don't are missing out on something necessary. As for how you decide whether these simulations are right for you and your family, if this is something you're considering either now or in a few years, I want to offer you a question that you can ask yourself to help decide whether this is a good idea for you.
The question, are you doing this? Are you simulating the dead because you want to stay in the past or because you want to move forward with your life? Because those simulations can do both, but only one is really healthy.
For some people, simulations of the dead are about turning back the clock, about rejecting the fact of a person's death by keeping that person around indefinitely. To my mind, this seems pretty unhealthy, because it means you're using AI to reject reality, to stay in a moment that no longer exists. You're letting the past overwhelm the present.
For other people, though, simulating the past is about moving forward. Maybe all you wanted is that one last conversation, or a way to give your kids a sense of their family history. Maybe collecting data from a parent gives you and your siblings a chance to reconnect, to compare notes on a mutual loss."
I could never actually do this. The person I would want to simulate is my paternal grandmother, and there's no way I, as the granddaughter, would ever have had enough material for an AI replica. But - she's my familiar link to Judaism. She's the one who got me interested in it. Now that my father and I are estranged due to him being a complete jerk, it's even harder that I can't call her on the holidays to wish her Shana Tova or Chag Sameach. I can't tell her about my religious path. I can't talk to her about the situation in Israel, or how I've finally found a synagogue I love and how I'm connected to community again. I know she'd be proud of me. I don't need AI to tell me that. But somehow I think - at least in the abstract - that even knowing that the AI isn't my grandmother, being able to log on at strategic times to give a holiday greeting or tell her I'm struggling (could an AI have enough of my liberal, Zionist grandmother to know how she'd feel about the war in Gaza?) or that I've found my footing again. Or maybe I'm wrong, and that would only make me feel the loss even more. I don't know. Maybe I should be glad that I'll never know.
The second episode of the podcast is titled "Ghost in the Machine" and explores using AI to create bots of the dead. (Yes, someone has done it. Now. It's real. Not like on TV, but it's been done.)
At the end of the episode, after talking to a pioneer in the technology and a rabbi who connects it to Judaism in a really cool way, David Zvi turns to the practical:
"Companies that offer simulations need to be sensitive. And people who use their services shouldn't suggest that the Luddites who don't are missing out on something necessary. As for how you decide whether these simulations are right for you and your family, if this is something you're considering either now or in a few years, I want to offer you a question that you can ask yourself to help decide whether this is a good idea for you.
The question, are you doing this? Are you simulating the dead because you want to stay in the past or because you want to move forward with your life? Because those simulations can do both, but only one is really healthy.
For some people, simulations of the dead are about turning back the clock, about rejecting the fact of a person's death by keeping that person around indefinitely. To my mind, this seems pretty unhealthy, because it means you're using AI to reject reality, to stay in a moment that no longer exists. You're letting the past overwhelm the present.
For other people, though, simulating the past is about moving forward. Maybe all you wanted is that one last conversation, or a way to give your kids a sense of their family history. Maybe collecting data from a parent gives you and your siblings a chance to reconnect, to compare notes on a mutual loss."
