A second asifa addressing the growing impact of artificial intelligence was held Thursday night in Lakewood, drawing senior rabbinic leadership and continuing a discussion that began earlier this week.
The gathering focused on concerns surrounding AI-driven calling, texting, and content generation, and followed an initial asifah that drew dozens of leading rabbanim and roshei yeshiva, where the gedolim called for a yom taanis u’tefillah over the threats posed by AI. A date has not been set for when that will take place.
Thursday night’s meeting featured remarks from Rav Elyah Ber Wachtfogel, Rav Malkiel Kotler and Rav Yisroel Newman, who addressed both the technological and hashkafic implications of artificial intelligence.
During his remarks, Rav Yisroel Newman warned that artificial intelligence poses dangers he described as more severe than those associated with the general internet. Rav Malkiel addressed the use of AI in Torah learning, stating that Torah learned through AI-generated means would not warrant a bracha, characterizing such a bracha as a berachah levatalah.
The asifah was attended by a wide range of senior roshei yeshiva and rabbinic leaders, including Rav Mendel Slomowitz, Rav Michel Handelsman, Rav Aryeh Sherwinter, Rav Menachem Mintz, Rav Velvel Mintz, and Rav Dovid Mermelstein.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
17 Responses
All I see in this board committee are Rabbonim who wouldn’t know AI from a hole in the wall.
I understand the need to control AI.
Of course their input is crucial but you need tech savy ehrliche people majorly involved, who actually know what they’re talking about!
I am trying to understand how the honored Roshei Yeshiva are Poskining the Sugya of AI without any first hand knowledge or use. Like any other technology AI is a Golem. It can be used by Hachamim for gathering and sifting through useful and correct information or it can be used by fools to lead them to incorrect information and mistaken conclusions. I have been using it daily for 3 months in my writing as a fact checker, a grammar checker, a source finder, a history savant, and it has helped me correct dozens of mistakes and improve my writing. Should we stop using cars and telephones because they can also be used for destructive purposes? One of the biggest Gaonim of the last Dor told me there is no such thing as a Maase Satan .. only people who misuse the Bria can Kavyachol turn Hashem’s world which is Kulo Tov into a Maase Satan. Let the Gedolim write guidelines for the proper way to use AI instead of trying to stop this ocean change in civilization
Here we go again
Waiting for the “comments”
Any transcript of the discussion!?
I think it’s also time for someone to show the roshay yeshiva All the things that are being said horribly horribly horribly against inzireh on all this social media pages etc all around Lakewood, toms River, Jackson, brick, Ocean County etc. Maybe it’s time to play nice to the neighbors or at least that they should think you’re playing nice.
Was the video recorded with a camcorder?? Or one of the “Askanim”s ehhh smartphone that he pashut needs for tzorchei tzibbur?
how can rabbanim paskin about television or internet if they don’t use it and wont look at it. how did reb Moshe pasken about medics if he never went to medical school
let me guess you speak to a medical expert and an AI expert and you ask all necessary questions to evaluate something and then you pasken.
there are loads of am’haaratzim who think da’as Torah is the biggest joke there is a poseik for halakha and when it comes to life they can go jump in a lake or in a mikveh. the chazon ish says about this group that they are apikursim. it says so in igrot chazon ish
wh
Let them come out and say that they won’t be accepting funds and donations from companies and buisnesses that use AI systems and AI technology.
Then they will have shown that they mean buisness.
@Serendipity:
Can they not rule on issurim like basar biChalav without first-hand knowledge, too? Must they G-d forbid eat a cheeseburger, or is second-hand knowledge there acceptable to you?
AI is not a “golem”, except in the sense that it is powered by technology rather than by a soul.
You obviously misunderstood that gaon. For example, to entice Klal Yisrael to fall for the eigel, Hashem permitted the satan to show them a fake vision of Moshe Rabbeinu dead in shamayim and the angels crying over him, leading them to believe that he wasn’t coming back when, of course, Moshe Rabbeinu was very much still alive. Yes, of course there is a maaseh satan. And, no, not every technological (and other) invention is simply meant to be harnessed in the right way. Television comes to mind; there is simply no need for that in a Jewish home.
When will we be zoche to get a detailed explanation instead a blanket issur? I even have questions on the halachic psak mentioned. If AI quotes a source in shas or poskim and someone looks up the source, that does not need a brichas HaTorah? Huh?
Boy it’s really sad to see how much people disrespect rabbis today, talking about them like they’re literally the filth of the Earth when they’ve never taken even one day off from learning in their life. Ask yourself how much learning have you done? Are you qualified to answer a single question in your own religion? They got to their position somehow, through experience and hard work and perseverance. And monkeys ripping on them on comments boards did mostly nothing with their life but it’s easy to laugh from your Anonymous couch. Just remember you’re a low life
lbj, RMF ztl’s SIL was Rav Dr. Dovid Tendler, a biology professor with whom he consulted on all medical matters. RSZA ztl consulted with Rabbi dr. Avraham Steinberg, a prominent neurologist on medical matters. kach hi darko shel Torah
@Serendipity you’re so right i wish more people would say this again and again about internet in general also! stop saying how bad it is and start teaching people how to use it correctly with proper guidelines cuz theyre using it anyways they might as well use it in the right way and there is so much good that can be done with it so learn to use it for the good only!!
Nothing positive ever comes out of these types of meetings while at the same time brings into question emunas chachamim. It is better you don’t report on these meetings.
Torah via AI = chamor nosei chamor (and not a chamor nosei sefarim)
-Harav Vachtfogel
wiseguy you re a first class fool peshuto kemashmao
there are chachomim getting together when they prefer, much prefer to be learning and not in the public eye, but they keep on getting together for no reason because it doesn’t accomplish anything
it questions emunas chachomin from ppl who do not have an ounce of emunas chachomim to begin with and are chachomin in their own eyes
More pictures please