One core component of Judaism is asking questions. On Passover, a whole section of the seder is dedicated to asking four questions1. In the Torah, Abraham asks God questions about God’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,2 and Moses questions God’s desire to destroy the Israelites after the sin of the Golden Calf, which results in God choosing a different path3. This core teaching influences everything I do. I am a curious person and I love questions because I love learning. I am always creating and updating my mental picture of the world.
AI & Faith is one space where I love to learn and ask questions. The book reviews (Poor Technology by Levi Checketts; God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O’Gieblyn) and podcasts (Rabbanit Sarah Wolkenfeld and Joshua Mendel and Dr. Nicoleta Acatrinei) I have produced for AI & Faith are filled with questions. My goal with each piece is to make you, the readers and listeners, think. This is why I always leave you with more questions. This is how I approach the world.
So, I started The Ignorance Podcast. A podcast about currently pursued research questions. See below for my podcast link and a table of all the episodes so far. Interestingly, none of my guests mentioned AI in their primary question. It is mentioned in some of the episodes, but not as the core issue. We, including researchers, are all grappling with AI in different ways. Through interviewing nine researches across a multitude of disciplines so far I have learned:
- Much of AI takes lots of energy. Could we reduce it? (episode 1)
- Humans have desires. Can AI have desires? (episode 2)
- Humans have lots of conversations in a day. Is AI relevant to every conversation, especially spirituality? (episode 5)
- AI can have some amazing uses. What are they? (episode 6)
I know I have not given you any answers, which is the point of the podcast. AI is constantly changing, incorporating new data, new parts of the internet. This can feel scary and uncertain. I encourage you to sit with that. Sit in the questions and the unknowns. It is okay if we don’t have all the answers. We learn a lot from pondering questions even if we may never know the answer. Judaism has taught me this.
What questions are you sitting with? When was the last time you updated your mental model of the world?
Podcast link: https://pod.link/1799118727
| Episode | Guest | Question |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Wilson | Do we really need to use all this energy? |
| 2 | Larry Hunter | Where do our desires come from? |
| 3 | Teri Hernandez | What should pregnant people eat? |
| 4 | Paul Lerner | How and what can we learn from the past? |
| 5 | R. Artson | How can religion help us thrive? |
| 6 | David Brandman | How does the brain work to help people with paralysis? |
| 7 | Julie Horvath (UNC) | How do genes and microbes influence health and behavior? |
| 8 | Kayla De La Haye | How do we transform complex food systems for good? |
| 9 | Wade Troxell | How do things connect beyond just the physical phenomena? |
References:
- https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-passover-pesach-seder/
- Genesis 18:17-33
- Exodus 32:11-14
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
