Keeping Kosher in the Age of AI

I’m very grateful to Moshe Koppel for his intriguing essay about artificial intelligence and Judaism. The essay, written by the rare individual who knows both AI and Jewish law from the inside, forced me to think about the various ways that halakhah (commonly translated as Jewish law) will have to grapple with new technology. Koppel addressed a broad range of topics, but I want to zero in on his assertion that halakhah is better suited than most systems to handle this new world, an issue on which I have somewhat less confidence than he does.

When most of us think of AI, we think of robots and ChatGPT or Google Gemini and the sentient supercomputers of science-fiction movies. We may get some of these things. But AI, as Koppel explains, is a way to describe advanced computing powers that will open up all kinds of technological frontiers that may seem more mundane but could be no less consequential. Though a novice to this subject, I already see how artificial intelligence accelerates social and technological processes from a pace measured in generations to one measured in years. It scrambles existing categories and conceptions at a rate that stresses our ability to reach the social consensus needed to absorb the new reality into existing paradigms. It will lead to rapid advances in already-destabilizing fields like genetic engineering and DNA manipulation, forcing us to grapple with issues that prior infrastructure and technology submerged.

In the wake of such changes, rabbinic decision-makers and observant Jews will be forced to ask themselves not about the how of halakhah but about the why. And that framing is at least as likely to lead to difficulty or even schism as to the comfortable consensus-based halakhic reasoning outlined by Koppel.