Avot, AI translation and interpretation

“AI is changing how we’ll work with Torah texts”. This is the title of an article posted to Anash.org on 19 June. It reads, in relevant part:

“The world of AI is still in the infancy of its potential, especially in relation to successfully formulating Torah thoughts and plunging the depths of meforshim and Chassidus. As time passes and AI’s abilities and skills are finely tuned, it will be capable of adding an astounding level of understanding and perspective to our learning …”

The article relates that Rabbi Rayi Stern and his team at Aitorah.org are currently working on AI-generated translations of Pirkei Avot in 12 different languages. It continues:

“Within each language, users can choose a classic translation, a free translation, or other options. In order to keep improving, they encourage users to give feedback—including any suggested edits to the translations, input, or compliments on what they enjoyed of the text. The team is very particular about every step of the output.

“Our goal is to make sure that a responsible and safe approach is adhered to; that all necessary checks and balances are in place—on both a computer and a human level,” a member of the team shared. “With technology able to do so much, the challenge becomes how to use it best. The English translations were fully edited, and extensive work went into the process, in order to ensure consistency…”

This sounds like a fascinating exercise, a sort of multidimensional hafoch bah vehafoch bah (“turn it around and turn it around”, per Ben Bag Bag, Avot 5:26). So long as we recognise borders, never lose sight of the original words of the Tannaim and measure the products of AI against the yardsticks of two millennia of tradition, we should have nothing to lose and plenty to gain.

There are of course certain caveats. One is that, just as there is no single Hebrew text of the entire tractate that has gained universal approval, there is no single English translation that can claim the exclusive right to be accepted as authoritative. The Hebrew does not change, but English does. Variations as between English and American vocabulary, grammar and syntax can be significant, as well as variations generated by changing shades of meaning over the course of time (for example, two hundred years ago it was quite normal to refer to an employer as a “master” and an employee as a “servant”). There are also mishnayot that have never been properly understood even in the original Hebrew (for example Rabbi Yishmael’s teaching at Avot 3:16: הֱוֵי קַל לְרֹאשׁ, וְנֽוֹחַ לְתִשְׁחֽוֹרֶת). But a caveat is not an impenetrable barrier to reaching new understandings of old teachings.

I’m curious to know how many Avot Today readers share my enthusiasm for this project and my optimism that it will bear valuable fruit. Please comment!

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It's not all in the mind...

A popular analytical tool for the study of human conduct is the tripartite categorisation of our output into (i) the things we think, (ii) the things that we not only think but say out loud and (iii) the things we do. 

We all have thoughts, whether we want to or not, and as the Rambam noted in his Shemonah Perakim, there is no effective way to stop a thought entering our heads. But, once a thought has entered our heads, it’s up to us to decide what to do about it. We can dwell upon it, particularly if it is a welcome or comforting thought. We can pend it until we are able to give it enough time to focus on it properly. We can also do our best to kick it into the long grass and hope never to think it again. Most of our thoughts are not shared with our fellow humans. We keep them to ourselves.

Speech is another matter. While many of us talk to ourselves for one reason or another, it is more frequently employed as a means of communication with others. We can be quite undiscriminating in our choice of audience: apart from other humans we address our comments to pets, plants, traffic lights—and, for those who pray, to God.

Then there are our actions, and these usually provide a closer and more accurate measure than thought or speech of what a person is. One can have thoughts and never share them, or speak words and not mean them. However, our actions are the tell-tale sign of what we really are. Proverbs like “actions speak louder than words” and mishnayot in Avot like 1:17 (“It’s not the learning that is the main thing but the doing”), 3:12 (wisdom only endures if it is exceeded by actions) and 3:22 (ditto) reflect this fact.

At Avot 2:1, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi teaches:

Focus on three things, and you will not come to the grip of sin: know what is above from you: (i) a seeing eye, (ii) a hearing ear, and (iii) all your deeds are written in a book.

In other words, God perceives what you think, say and do—whether anyone else does so or not. Just remember this before you are about to speak, act or even decide to wallow in an inappropriate thought, and you should be able to negotiate the problems and pitfalls of life on earth and yet emerge with credit.

In his Kerem Chemed commentary on Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yehudah Rabinovitz subjects this mishnah to the tripartite division of thoughts, words and deeds. The “seeing eye” perceives one’s thoughts; the “hearing ear” hears one’s words and the book is quite explicitly the place where one’s deeds are recorded.

But what does the “seeing eye” have to do with thoughts? The author brings a verse from the first Book of Samuel: “Man sees what his eyes behold, but God sees into the heart” (2 Shmuel 16:7). Today it is even more apparent that our thoughts are no longer safe and secret within our brains, since the current state of artificial intelligence (AI) has already brought us close to mind-reading by computers. See eg “New computer can read your mind and turn what you're thinking of into images” (here), “This mind-reading AI can see what you're thinking - and draw a picture of it” (here) and “Mind-reading tech is here (and more useful than you think!)” (here). If a mere machine can do such things, we need hardly wonder that an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe can do it better?