By Shabi Soffer
In the past few months AI (artificial intelligence), seems to be the topic of every other conversation. It is clear that we are living through one of the greatest technology breakthroughs in history, and it personally gave me a lot to think about, that I wish to share.
According to modern science it is our advanced level of intelligence and creativity that separates us from other living beings, and systems of information processing; and this is seen as the foundation for defining the human experience.
For this reason, the scientific breakthrough of artificially creating this experience in a computer, is a game changing concept that fascinates us, and will completely change the way we interact with our daily lives, and the world.
Humans have created a system that thinks creatively, that works faster and more efficiently than they themselves could ever even imagine. AI has essentially beat us at our own game, we have been “out human-ed” by the creation of our own hands.
This undeniable reality that AI can, and will replace us in most fields of professional and creative life, is the source of tremendous fear to millions, over what will cause the complete loss of human value in work and employment, considering that AI outperforms us in almost every area, and will continue taking jobs as robotics and automation progress in efficiency and reach mainstream affordability. Understandably, this is also seen as a terrifying challenge to our sense of purpose and identity.
This fear stood out to me, to an even greater degree, when someone explained to me that very soon we can expect the possibility of a computer archiving most of the information in a person’s brain, their thoughts, key memories, and overall personality identification, resulting in a digital personality that thinks and reacts on the basis of that person’s digital archive. In a sense creating “digital immortality”, that can, in a way, keep a person, or at least their thinking style, alive forever.
All of this made me wonder: Are we really just our thoughts? Is our worth really dependent on our usefulness? These are serious questions that AI gives us practically no choice but to ask ourselves.
Let’s break this down.
Chasidus speaks of the way humans experience life, one example given is of a business person whose career status and wealth is so deeply engraved into their identity and sense of self, that giving away even a single dollar from their hard earned money, is like asking them to cut a piece off one of their fingers.
What creates the above scenario?
We are taught that the one infinite capacity a human has, easily at their disposal is the capacity for pleasure, and the desire for more of it.
Built into our awareness and sense of self, is a desire to feel and enjoy ourselves. We perceive everything around us as possible devices usable for our own benefit and pleasurable experience. The ultimate factor in our decision making and goal setting process, is the way something makes us feel, the better it feels, the more attractive it becomes to us.
Since this personal gratification detection ability stems from awareness of ourselves, therefore, when we choose to focus all our attention on something physical for the pleasure it gives us, we are using it as a tool to experience the excitement and pleasure of our own existence. It is for this reason that you may often hear someone say “I never felt so alive” when indulging in a pleasurable experience.
In fact, this is actually the genesis of addiction. When one finds extreme pleasure in a specific physical sensation, a feeling that only one thing can provide them, the desire for that pleasure, and the satisfaction of receiving it, unlocks an infinite chase for more. Since the feeling they chase so desperately, becomes so deeply embedded into their sense of self, it becomes part and parcel with their very identity. Without it, they don’t feel complete, they feel so un-alive.
This is the natural human experience. We connect ourselves to specific outlets of self expression, and that is how we define ourselves. Some find their worth and sense of self in their wealth, others in their intelligence, and others in their field of work.
These few are all forms of us defining ourselves in the spectrum of social and societal status. Thus, the question is asked: What happens when society no longer has a need for us, when AI has all bases covered?.
All of your creative thoughts, accumulated knowledge, talents, years of hard earned work experience, gone and replaceable. Now what?
Unless, maybe these things don’t actually define our humanity, after all.
Torah’s definitive definition of a human, as opposed to any other life form, is a Bar Daas, one with the capacity for Daas, which doesn’t mean “one with the capacity for higher intelligence” or “one with the capacity for intelligent contribution”, rather it means, one with a high capacity to understand and recognize things deeply, stemming from their self-awareness.
What’s so fascinating is that our above-mentioned ability to connect to things and experiences outside of us to define ourselves, is through our Daas as well. Meaning, get ready for the interesting part, the very same power we used to focus all of our attention on making AI replaceable traits define our identities and purpose, which is the source of our current fear of uselessness to begin with, is actually the same uniquely human power of deep awareness that differentiates us from AI, as eternally irreplaceable.
If this power of conscious self-awareness and specifically our ability to control how we experience it, defines our value and humanity, we ought to figure out how to use it correctly.
Therefore, instead of fearing loss of our value, when AI takes everything we saw as important enough to define ourselves by until now, we should better ask ourselves if there’s anything that’s actually irreplaceably important enough to focus on instead, to define who we are.
Unfortunately, the only thing the AI boom provides us with, is the wake up call that the average human will become obsolete, and that many will face intense feelings of uselessness, but recognition of the problem doesn’t provide the solution.
Either this could cause a mass turning point in trying to figure out what it actually means to be a human, or we could witness the greatest fall, beyond anything we thought we’ve already seen, into instant gratification, mind numbing entertainment, and all other forms of self medicating solutions that can be used to simply redirect our consciousness to other areas in place of our old careers and identity defining outlets, to mute all of the crippling feelings of worthlessness we’ll face.
This is where Chasidus comes in.
Chassidus is the study of what it means to be a human. It teaches us that while our creativity, talent, and intelligence are on its own, totally replaceable, when recognized as mere tools for the conscious awareness that enlivens their capabilities, and used in order to reach higher, deeper levels of what we are consciously aware of, only then can we find our meaning.
Through studying Chassidus we can begin realizing that everything we do in life only has meaning when it represents something beyond the fact that we are doing it alone. There must be a reason to work, if work itself becomes the reason, we are useless compared to the work of a computer.
A human should not be the product of their external life experiences, on the contrary, one must define their experience of life from within. In order to find the purpose of living, one must define what it means to live, not let the way they live define their meaning.
Thinking about all of this, made me realize many things.
To start, for many years the idea of a Jew’s main priority in life being service of Hashem, and work life being secondary, was always seen as “a level” to be held by, and never a practical way of life.
We all have that one friend, or know that one guy who “holds the fort”, and lives a life dictated by these impractical idealistic concepts, but as for myself, “I’m not holding there”, we usually say.
As regular life as we always knew it now stands at the threshold of extinction by AI, suddenly, the above mentioned concept Chasidus has been feeding us all these years sounds a lot less like text in an ancient book, and a lot more like a trending topic on Twitter.
This moment of recognizing the truth of a concept in Chassidus outside of the confines of lines, paragraphs, and page numbers, is the ultimate purpose of learning it, and it too is called Daas, because this once “idealistic concept”, now hits close to home. It is real to your experience of life, you connected with it.
Usually, one must think long and hard about something to reach this level of personal recognition, but every once in a while, when we simply aren’t getting the point, Hashem creates a situation where we have no choice but to realize it automatically.
I genuinely believe that one by one, every single concept in Chassidus will be proven by the current reality seen around us.
Another key example of this is that many years ago, when the Rebbe spoke out against the societal “need” to go to college, and the general “necessity” of a secular education, in order to solidify a child’s place in the working world they’ll grow up in, many had a hard time understanding how this approach could ever be considered practical. Until this day, some still question it.
This approach was by no means exclusive to Chassidim, or even Jews. The Rebbe’s birthday has been marked nationally as “Education Day USA”, every year since 1978. This was founded based on the Rebbe’s vision and push for a new approach to education of all ages that would be focused solely on what it means to be a human, with moral, ethical, and spiritual values, and not merely the intellectual basics necessary for pinning down a career.
Now, in light of AI and its impending radical shift on our lives, we witness clearly that the high status, high paying jobs, and the likes of which we’ve always chased, have never and will never define us as people, and are about to be totally replaceable, in a revealed way, in the larger scheme of life.
We struggled to understand that work is secondary, and that idolizing the secular idea of education and success is a waste of precious time, so we needed AI to come and show us straight out and directly, that none of these things will ever provide meaning to anyone’s life.
What the Rebbe was trying to teach an entire generation was that one must have a firm grasp on who they are, and what it means to live, before they ever even begin thinking about how they choose to define their idea of success in life.
Maybe getting a job when necessary, that simply puts money on the table, wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.
That leads me to the next topic of this epiphany: Modern Feminism.
The mass education and encouragement of women from birth, to chase and succeed at a career of their choice, just like [and this is the key point here,] a man could, and had been doing exclusively for all of time. Slowly dismantling the age old, oppressively restrictive expectation and societal pressure of getting married, having children, and building a home, as the single most important thing in life, in light of a bigger and better aspiration, the amazingly wondrous CAREER!.
Now I ask you, based on everything we now know about the expected extinction of 85 million jobs in about 2 years, and the feeling of utter uselessness it will create in millions, maybe, just maybe, the women of the not so distant past, who fit the cursed “traditional gender roles”, actually had life’s priorities straight all along?… You see, the male dominated freedom of status chasing, that many women wanted an equal part in, has been exposed as history’s greatest sham, regardless of gender.
In fact, the Rebbe once said that a woman is, and should embrace being, a living example to the world and to their family, not to learn from the foolish ways of their husbands, falling prey to the hamster wheel of status, money, and making work their identity, in place of the things that actually matter in life.
Which directly segways into the next point: The war on marriage.
In direct result of the above point, modern society is seeing both men and women reject the notion that they need to be married, [This can be seen even in many that eventually do get married with the “I didn’t need to, I wanted to” attitude, after all, even marriage could be a beneficial choice for one’s selfish attainment of a desired status] instead focusing all priorities on the very fulfilling, more important life of chasing career status and being “themselves”. As we’ve already established, many of which are about to hit a dead end of disappointment and hopelessness.
And lastly: Depression.
This one should be easily understood by now. How is it even remotely possible for a generation raised from birth to form their entire identities and make their purpose in life dependent on finding themselves in external forms of self expression that can, and will become obsolete in a single moment, not expect the cries of a mass existential identity crisis, marked as yet another form of depression on an endless statistic sheet?.
Now let’s get to the solution behind all of this.
We’ve established that Daas is what makes you a human, so in order to find meaning in being one, we must return to it.
This Daas, our power to control how we consciously experience life, is the key to stability, meaning, tranquility and happiness. But it all depends on how we use it.
As I explained earlier, this power allows us to focus all our attention and connect our sense of self to things outside of us, and live off the experiences they provide us. But, it is also the source of our ability for a very different kind of connection, and that is our ability to connect the essence of ourselves, with the essence of another person.
This is why the ultimate union in a marriage is referred to in Torah as Daas, as it says “Adam Yada Es Chava” – Adam knew Chava. Like magnets, each person’s Daas has the power to connect with another’s. He knew her, as he knew himself, he was totally conscious of and in sync with her.
Why is this important? Because according to Chasidus, the relationship in a marriage is representative of the ultimate relationship between yidden and Hashem. This is why every time Torah asks us to come to know Hashem, it uses the word Daas. Which means, your purpose in life is to bind your identity and awareness of your existence with a deep awareness of Hashem’s existence, connecting ourselves through his Mitzvos.
As I see it, this is why the Rebbe spoke so often about never being satisfied, and desiring more. Because if your service of Hashem is done through a deeply personal selflessness, the pleasure felt in the connection itself will automatically lead you to wanting to do more, creating an infinite bond built on desire to get closer, and closer.
Thus, the path to purpose and happiness in every area in life is to find beauty in the connection of relationships in-itself. The highest form of this being in marriage, but the same concept applies to friendships, community, the world at large, and in our relationship with the ultimate source of all consciousness, our creator.
In short, our consciousness was built to connect with others, the only true and fulfilling life is embodied and sustained by selflessness towards a greater purpose.
And if you’d like undisputed proof of this, it is actually baked into the very fabric of natural existence itself. Think about the fact that one’s ability for self connection is so powerful, that binding it together with the same sense in their spouse, can literally create another person with a third conscious sense of self.
That means, scientifically speaking, the only reason you exist, and are conscious enough to even be able to question your purpose, is because before you, two people selflessly focused and devoted their entire sense of self to someone else. It will never be possible to create life on your own.
When focusing on ourselves, what I want, what I enjoy, and think I need etc, becomes the prime focus of an entire generation, then ultimately everyone and everything becomes a worthless black hole of suicidal depression, and for a very simple reason, If no one matters to you, you won’t matter to anyone else, and ultimately no one matters at all. When no one matters, nothing matters.
We lose sense of our humanity easily, in the dark and lonely abyss of self-service and man-made selfish concepts of success. One could only find their truest identity in selfless connection. When we all matter to someone and something outside of ourselves, life’s purpose, and your own boundlessly meaningful, irreplaceable place in it, can be found.
In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental reasons why Shlichus, and selflessly helping others was such an important staple of the Rebbe’s approach to the modern society his leadership inherited.
In our current society, where one has everything they’ll ever need to live comfortably, and we no longer face a power of threat that forces any self-sacrifice out of us, we are now free to define ourselves by our own choices.
The Rebbe showed us that the key to making sure this newfound freedom of opportunity shouldn’t be abused to our downfall, with radical selfishness, is by combating it with extreme selflessness.
Only through seeing selflessness and connection as our personal identity, can we find our own happiness in being in sync with the purpose of all being; to be of irreplaceable meaning to our friends, family, spouse, and ultimately come to bind ourselves with Hashem in the most meaningful and truthful way possible.
Unfortunately this approach isn’t the one society has adopted, being that the most fundamental ideologies of our times has consistently been to, be yourself, love yourself, care for yourself, express yourself, esteem yourself, and many other forms of self worship, in an attempt to alleviate the staggering depression and negative self worth issue we face.
Considering the fact that focusing on ourselves causes unhappiness to begin with, it is obviously not surprising that this hasn’t been working, and actually makes things worse.
Similarly, the idea often promoted that “everyone needs or would benefit from a therapist”, [what I’m about to say is not referring to people who genuinely need one for a specific issue, nor am I saying that there aren’t many who would benefit, however,] a statement like that as a general approach to life, is in a sense telling someone, just like you buy all sorts of luxuries in life to complete yourself, so too, everyone should buy themselves a friend.
The benefit to this bought friend being that a real one makes you talk to them about their boring lives, as well, but when you buy one, you only have to talk about you and your life, with all of its very interesting and relevant, complicated issues. All this together with the fact that it simply gives the impression that the average person is flawed well beyond their own ability to deal with life.
A much better message would be, “everyone would benefit greatly from trying to do at least five acts of extreme kindness towards another person a day, and try being a good friend to people around them”. I think many people would be a lot happier.
The point is, we are all very well informed on the status quo, I don’t imagine many will need Google search to find out what AI is, or that people today are much more career oriented than ever before, and that mental and emotional health is the number one selling topic in every imaginable category.
We are witnessing a point in history where there is increasingly less of a need to intellectually prove the dead-end falsehoods of pop culture and societal standards of success, what matters now, is recognizing the messages hidden subtly behind the headlines, allowing ourselves to do a deep dive into the solutions, finding the truth of how we should be living.
Put 20 different kinds of people in a room and question them on their life goals and desires. I assure you that though the details of their aspirations may vary, the general categories of what they seek to attain will be the same. Because like an AI bot, all of us are preprogrammed to want the same things. The only unnatural and truly free choice that one has in life, is to bypass our own programming and choose not to be a slave to the human condition, embracing the truth of what is really important in life, finding freedom in servitude to something beyond ourselves.
Open a Maamer, learn a Sicha, Daven, give Tzedakah. Do some thinking.
The Rebbe, like all our Rebbeim, is the one we can count on, who sees and experiences life in its truest, most authentic form. Let his carefully chosen words, and the gentle depth of his image, influence you. Never stop seeking more of that connection, depth of understanding, and eye opening clarity, for it truly is the master key to everything one will ever need in this world, and you won’t get it anywhere else.
Find and tap into the thing that makes you irreplaceable, our ability to live a life of consciously connecting our very existence and all of our experiences, with our creator. Only then can we find our place in his beautiful garden, we call home.
I skimmed through the article quickly because ads kept popping up on my phone! Another curse of AI. I hope to print this out and read it with a cup of coffee. You hit many important points!
Ultimately, the careers that involve deep meaningful connections like teaching, nursing, elder care, psychotherapy etc…will not be as affected by AI. The world may have to shift and acknowledge the importance of these noble professions.
Notice that these professions all involve connection- connecting to one another
This is genius and very well written
The comforting thought when analyzing the perils of AI, is that the same G-d who introduced AI to the world will surely allow humans to use it as a medium to Avodas HaShem. And the “medaber”- man, will always be on the top tier in the hierarchy of creation
exactly as the sicha of the week opens up in chelk beis shoftim.
just before reading this a yid came into our chabad and house and put on Tefilin he had never heard of “To fill in what” he had a Bar mitzvah as I wrapped up his arm he said Asher kidshonu bemitzvosov….. lehadlik ner Shel Chanukah.
nothing is more important these days. the basics are not just basic they are our lifeline… everything thing else is a distraction……. noise.
Ubfortuantely, many people defer to a “robotic” life where day in and day out there is this sense of automation, performing the same tasks repeatedly; socially, professionally and perhaps spiritually as well. Consider that the challenge may be to stretch beyond one’s comfort level and aspire to greater heights of achievement. Making one indispensable to one’s family, community and workplace is the true sense of the purpose of man, to “conquer the world”. Maybe it is time to live a life of authenticity and meaning.
Use technology for spreading positivity and spirituality. Not another “latest updated technical ” thing to marinate into and get addicted by. As people are faced with more and more issues like mental health, lack of trust, not wanting to be closely connected to others but only to satisfy needs… dont want to build on a everlasting relationship but rather have a finger tip iPhone on your disposition to fulfill your “on the spot” need, people will turn to social media more and more instead of nurturing a everlasting relationship which is eternally healthy but lot more investment within time. Social… Read more »
A thoughtful and beautiful article.
Personally, my takeaway was the “rules of the game of life” as we know it is about to change and an instant, the “ winners and losers “ of the old game suddenly get put back in starting position.
In other words, a total reset.
This is great for those who either didn’t perform well in the old game or who didn’t enjoy the old game too much.
On a full re-shuffle, there is an opportunity for those currently on the sidelines to break out.
Sounds exciting –
Bring on AI!!!
Was this written with chatgpt? 😆
And no, a skim of the article will show you that it is not written by Ai.
Ai sprouts lots of good sounding, shallow hack a chainik
To use the concept brought here-Ai hours not have daas, something well represented in this article
Good points
And so many thoughtful points!
Baruch Hashem for Shabbos, a day we disconnect from the world and connect to each other and Hashem