This title was provided by AI (Ep. 288)

Hi, it's David Alowski and welcome to the Reowski show. Whether you're watching with our friends overturning time, who of course are the new producers of the show, who have you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, we're happy to have you along for the experience. And uh we have a sponsor this week who is the same sponsor as last week. So, I'm reading the same sponsorship. Hi, Rabbi. Thank you for your fresh and very practical perspective on Torah and Yiddishkite. In particular, your reframing of the Auna crisis into a choice between marriage versus pleish was excellent. It's a great example of how the world uses inflammatory positioning to get us to lose sight of the icker issue. Keep up the great work. Canada Rosens, thank you very much. Okay, so I've mentioned this many times. Yeah, that um my uh when I'm about to give a podcast, I mean this is over 6 years now. We're almost we're almost done with our sixth year of this podcast. So when you have a podcast where you're doing the parisha, okay, so there's lots of stuff to talk about. If you're doing a political podcast, there's lots of stuff to talk about. If you're doing an interview show, they just keep bringing on different people, right? But if it's just me sitting here and talking about whatever I feel like. So I you know I went through all of my main fetches you know during the first four years. So now uh I find new things to fetch about but uh it's tricky and because as often happens I meet people who have committed to memory everything I have ever said which I find incredibly frightening. Yeah. So I remember I had somebody sitting in on the P podcast once uh you know friend of the show and at the end he says I didn't hear one thing new. So let me say first of all that um uh Rabbi Dr. Aram Torski uh famously said I wrote 40 books but I didn't really I wrote one book 40 times the same uh I remember once I I uh heard RMisha Shapiro Gashira and I said to Reverend Yoseph Brown who was much more involved with RMisha than I was and uh I said he said this year three years ago and he says no he didn't he changed this and he changed that which I thought was fascinating so uh he said look a painter has only so many colors on his palette but he can paint an endless array of paintings I thought that was interesting because it's true right if you read a particular author He has a particular way of writing and uh all of his books will be basically the same. If you listen to certain musicians and there's a certain theme to their music and uh although they might do uh slight variation on it, but there's a general um way that their music works and how they do it. You think about this for yourself. I'm not talking about, you know, artists who are singers and buy songs. Well, people write their own songs. You know, you can hear a certain common thread in AB Rottenberg's music. You can hear a certain common uh thread uh in the Miami Boys Choir. You know, there's there's there's certain uh tunes that you hear that sound like they have a certain reflection. Um comedians, you know, some of them have a certain style. You know, people used to make fun of uh Seinfeld all the time and say, "You ever notice? You ever noticed? Hey, how about that? Hey, you haven't noticed." You know, he says he never actually ever said that, you know, but that's the perception. The perception is that he has a certain type of humor. You know, Steven Wright, everything is very dead pan. And, you know, that's that's the way that uh they have it. Everyone has a particular style. So obviously um I only have one shar I only have one idea and that's bringing across uh Torah in a positive way to get people to appreciate aas hashem and to appreciate uh the the relationship we're supposed to have and to grow and to become better and that's more or less what I try to do but obviously uh you have to take the colors and make a different painting. There's a lot of different variations that you can make with it. So, as I often do before I record a a show, I ask the people around me, "What should I talk about?" And my wife says, "Why are you asking me? I You never use anything I say. It's not true." I said, "There have been times I use what you say, you know." And uh and uh so so she did something which she's been doing more and more often. My wife is much younger than me. Now, the truth is she's only three years younger than me. Um, and not even a full three years. Uh, I was 23 when I got married. She was 20. Um, but her birthday's in November. Mine's in January. It's clo less than three years. But somehow she's so much more happening than I am. I was always an old man. From the time I was young, I was a funny duddy. Yeah. I remember when I started getting from so my father used to say to me you know why do you dress like an undertaker you know you're I mean I was in the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County which was a co-ed high school it wasn't like a black and white yeshiva but I dressed more conservatively and you know somber clothing less color you know my dad he was a real fashion plate you know um he he was during the early 70s you know I mean He had all the hip clothing and stuff like that. And I was wearing dark somber suits, you know, and calling everyone my child, you know. In fact, someone I saw someone recently, they said, "Oh, you look exactly the same." I said, "Yeah, because I made sure to age early, so I always look this way." So, uh, so yeah, I don't change much because, you know, that's basically what it was. I never had like a really youthful look. Well, I was just always an old man, an old fetchy man. You know, I I finally my age has just caught up to me. When I was in my 40s, I remember the senior citizen on the bus got up to give me a seat. There's something about me. That's just an old man vibe that I give off, you know. Uh but my my wife first of all um she uh apparently she denies it but I'm pretty sure she made a deal with the devil and sold her soul so that she remains looking young. She doesn't age. She goes out with my daughters and they think she's one of the sisters and they're always shocked to find out how old she is. I remember on our 25th wedding anniversary when we went out. So we took our baby with us cuz he was still an infant. Um and uh he was um he was uh uh our you know our benzakundum you know so we took him with us. So this couple there we went of course to uh the galitans um which we love. We like going to the galitans. I think they fixed it up and when we used to go there they didn't but we like the view. We liked being near the sea and we like the fact that they have a 24-hour tea room where you can always have a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. That to me is a high misha hotel, you know. Anyway, we went there for shabas and um I remember we asked the travel agent I said which Mahadran hotels are available and she gave us a list and I said what about the galitans? They said I thought you wanted a hotel. I think they fixed it up since then. But anyway, but uh so we're in the dining room, Chabas, and this woman says to my wife, you know, looks at the baby, says, "Oh, is that your first?" And she says, "No, it's my 11th." She goes, "Oh my goodness, you look so young." And then she looks at me and then she turns back to my wife and says, "You look so young." No one ever says that to me. You know, when uh when I came in, when uh our last kid was born, I came to the hospital, the nurse said, "Ah, saba, grandpa's here." So, um so I was always been around the time. Um I think email existed for oh, I don't know, 15 years till I got an email account, you know. Um and uh it took me it took me a very long time to catch up with new technology. Yeah. Um in fact, I just met with somebody who told me I need somebody to manage my social media account. He does this for a living and uh there's no way that u I'm going to produce enough money to pay his salary to be able to do it. He's very good at it. But he says, "You have to get an Instagram account and you have to get a tick tick tock account and you have to keep putting up little shorts and that's what people watch today. You give a long form podcast. You go and you talk for an hour and not everybody wants to listen that. You need uh YouTube shorts and little short things like this. I don't know what these things are, you know. I I I I don't know what an Instagram account is. Everybody has an Instagram account. I I don't I don't really know. I have email, you know. That's uh that's pretty good. Um my uh my kids put me on WhatsApp and everyone always complains I never read the WhatsApps, you know, because it's just so many of them, you know. It's just too much to be able to keep up with, you know, and people go back and forth, you know, and then there's voice notes and stuff. It's too complicated for me. just, you know, I remember Jackie Mason when email first came out, you know, he says people are emailing and emailing and emailing and then they call up the guy, did you get my email? And I remember when they first came out with these texting things and you know, I can't text like that. my kids can like you know so I'm sitting there like texting you know and I'm going slowly looking for the letters you know and I was like when are you coming yeah and then I get back like a three-page note like you know in about 12 seconds I don't know how they do it so after a while I just give up and I call them why am I why am I doing this you know so uh that's cuz I'm old I heard this comic once say you know my generation we're like addicted to our phones says My parents have phones, but they just use it to make calls. Says, "That's an app on my phone, and I'm upset if you use it without texting me first to see if you can call me, you know." So, what can I tell you? You know, I am I grew up with phones that were wired to the wall with a dial. [Music] That's how we used to make phone calls, you know, when they came up with uh, you know, phones that you could carry around without being attached to the thing, you know. It was unbelievable. Portable phones, you know, and then cell phones. Took me years to get a cell phone. For years, I put away I put off getting a cell phone because uh, I said, "What do I need? Who, you know, why do I need a cell phone?" And some said to me, "This way people can reach you anywhere at any time." I said, "Now remind me again why I would want a cell phone." You know, my wife always said, "If I want to reach you during the day, I said I call in from time to time. It's okay." You know, and then I broke down on the telev 99 to 99.9% of the phone calls are not necessary. you know, on those rare occasions, you know, where you have a real emergency, okay, it's good to have one, but how often does that really come up? I would say just the opposite. More accidents are caused by uh by cell phones than by people who don't have cell phones to call up afterwards. But, okay, I'm old. We've established that, you know. Um, when I stopped teaching seminary maybe 12 years ago, my daughter still teaches in seminaries and she said to me, "Aba, it's a good thing you left because the world has changed and you haven't." It's true. I haven't I'm still I have a regular way of uh looking at the world and a very simplistic approach and yeah, it's true. I want I'll talk about this next week when I want to talk about uh the nine days but uh but I'm just saying all this by introduction because I said to my wife what should I speak about? So my wife as I mentioned is much more happening than I am. She says I'll I'll ask chat GTP. So okay I've never used chat GT GPT in my life. It's artificial intelligence. Most of the people that I've taught over the years don't even have human intelligence. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence. You know, somebody claims that I said this line. I have no recognition of ever saying it. You know, they say, "Oh, you're just brainwashing us." And he says, "No, I'm trying to find a brain, and if I find it, maybe I can wash it. But right now, I can't even locate it." It's it's I'm from the old days when you could say you know little rough things to you and tell me somebody asked a really stupid we were doing Mishnayas McGill and uh um we were doing all the a baines you know in McGill a bane neova Ella a bane uh you know Ella you know all these kind of things so uh I don't know he as some kind of really ridiculous question even knew it was a ridiculous And I said, "That's called a brain." Yeah. It was just a throwaway line. The name stuck with him for 20 years. I have to have my mouth, you know, registered as a lethal weapon, you know. I just I don't know. Sometimes I say things, but anyway. So, my wife says, "I'll ask Chad GTP." And I really feel like I need to share this with you. This is what she wrote. What would be a good topic for Rabbi David Olowski to speak about on his next podcast? Now, first of all, full disclosure, I know Chat GT knows who I am because my son told me that his friend asked Chat GPT, he says, "I want to listen to a sheer, you know, one that would be kind of funny and relaxing and be meaningful, you know, I'm not looking to like, you know, stress out. Can you make a suggestion?" He goes, "Well, of course you want the shor of Rabbi David Olowski. So I know that you know artificial intelligence is aware of me and they're coming for me." Hello, Hal. So what would be a good topic for Rabbi David to speak about on his next podcast? Here are several strong topic ideas that would fit Rabbi Davidski's signature style. combining Torah insight, practical life guidance, and humor depending on his goals for the episode. Torah and personal growth, how to be from a normal, a classic Olavski style blend of humor and insight on balancing religious seriousness with being emotionally healthy and socially normal. The art of chuva all year long. Making chuva a daily habit, not just a rashana panic project. How to talk to Hashem when you don't know what to say on real personala. Not just checking off the sit sitter. I don't know what that means. Checking off the sitter, but okay. for younger listeners or singles, why you're not married yet and why that might be okay with the classic Rabiolvski spin immuna effort and self-worth. Surviving shik season with your sanity intact. A practical and spiritual road map to managing pressure and keeping perspective. Parenting and raising kids with amuna, not just rules. Focusing on transmitting values in a way that sticks. What yeshiva didn't teach you about building a bias is real life relationship and communication skills from a Torah outlook. Here's the last category. It gives me light but deep. Does Hashem want me to be happy? Torah sources on simka and whether it's a real aoda. Judging favorably a lost mitzvah. Exploring the mitzvah of donafus in today's quick to condemn world. If you're not growing, you're coasting. And that's dangerous. Avoiding spiritual stagnation in an overstimulated generation. Would you like a more specific theme based on the season l tisha of sun summer summer break or a specific audience? So then I asked her uh asked him to write a Rabiolowski joke. They weren't very funny. Uh I didn't I didn't even bother writing them down because you know they they definitely don't have Rabiowski's signature style of humor and cleverness. an insight. Now, let me tell you what I got out of this experience. I I first thing I said to my wife is, "Can you send this to me?" She goes, "Which topic are you going to use?" I said, "Nothing. I'm going to read this because AI is changing the world." And everyone knows this. Yeah. Um, I'll give you an example. one that's close to my heart, one that makes me very disturbed on a very primal level. Herz rent a car is starting to use AI to check for damage and suddenly there's a small little ding in the car and they charge you for it because the AI checks the whole car over and sees every little nick and and ping that's in the car. Uh it used to be that you know you can you can you can overlook some little things but not AI. Yeah, AI is starting to fill in in so many areas. Somebody told me, and I didn't check this out because I'm not pesakron, but uh someone told me that they went to a few doctors and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with them and they went to chat GPT and it diagnosed them correctly, something that nobody had caught and was able to do a better job than all these real life doctors. Um there's a lot of professions that are about to be replaced by AI and uh the world changes. That's just the reality. You can complain about it, but it doesn't make a difference. So, uh, the Rabbi Olowski show audience continues to grow, but we're still conservatively at 25,000 people, you know, maybe 30,000. I'm not sure. I have to get all the numbers because I keep meeting people who call up on Torah anytime to listen on the phone. I have I don't have those numbers. I met a lot of people who do that. So, I don't have the internet. I I do call up. I listen. So, uh, I'm not sure how many people are. I should ask Chad GPT how many people actually watch the show. Maybe they can figure it out for me. But um uh but the the um uh you know but people were telling me if you want to really reach a lot of people you have to be like these rabbis. And he showed me a bunch of rabbis who are on Instagram and they put up these five minute little videos and they have hundreds of thousands of views. I think it's amazing. Amazing. It It's It's a form. Look, there was a time when I used to leave my house on a busy day. Not every day was like this, but on a busy day, I'd leave the house a quarter to 7. I'd go in Davin. I'd go straight to Orch to teach um from 9:15 till uh 1:15 and then I would run across town to teach in seminary from like 2 to 5. Um, and then uh I would run back to or to teach my para and then I would run out in Davin Mayv and then I would um I would teach an oliga at night. I'd get home at 10 10:15 at night and then I had all the phone calls to return and things like that and I was busy. I was busy when I lost all of my jobs through my wit and personality and I uh I ended up becoming a speaker and running going around different places talking occasionally I'd have a large audience you know I spoke in the Javit Center to like a thousand people that was unusual I spoke uh Shivasam was I'll never forget this Um uh I every now and then would make my own shir in charge at the door. So I was making a shir in my on Sunday Shivas. This was a bunch of years ago and another organization wanted to piggy back and like take my event for me. They said we'll pay the rental, we'll pay the flyers, we'll pay the ads, you know, etc. and we'll take the event and we'll sponsor the event and one of our people will speak beforehand. I said okay, just tell me what you want to do. Do you want to pay me my regular fee or do you want to keep the gate? You know, when people come and pay, he says, "No, how many people are you going to get already? We we'll let you keep the gate." 500 people turned up. Turned out that was a poor investment strategy on their part. You know, they wanted to change the arrangement afterwards. I said, "Hey, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Anyway, I got 500 people. Um, I have the of having a kesher with Reverend Foyer and he was a Reverend Muny for many years. And I mentioned this to him. He says, "A Sunday shas big deal. Anybody could have done that. There's nothing for people to do. No one goes to work. Everyone's just hanging around. Of course, don't come and speak." He said, "I could have gotten double that." But uh but that was a big audience. Like I said, Or had an event at the Javit Center. I spoke for a thousand people. I spoke in the Shir Salian event in Jerusalem when they used to have it 3,000 women. But every week I sit here and I speak to 25,000 people. That's that's a big crowd. That's a that's a large that's a that's an arena to fill up 25,000 people. Can you imagine if we got them all together? Yeah. And the idea that this person was trying to tell me is and if you market it right, you can reach 100,000 people, 300,000 people, which is just mind-boggling. The whole concept of what you can do today is uh is just amazing. people used to write a newsletter and and send it out, you know, or even have an email group or a WhatsApp group, you know, but to be able to sit and speak uh about mostly the very Torah and some other stuff whatever happens to occur to me to be able to reach this amount of people the the the change that this does in the world is beyond imagination. For most of human history, if you wanted to write something, you took a piece of cloth or papyrus or you know eventually had some form of paper and you stood there with a quill and an ink well and you wrote on it. Yeah, that is how when my mom went to school, they still had inkwells until the 1950s. That's what you used. You had ink wells. might have a have a a a fountain pen, you know, but that was it. You write on it, it gets smudged. There would be like fine sand that they would sprinkle on it or something so that it would it would set. An amazing thing when laabdil when you read li miserab or war in peace and you realize or uh um um any Dickens novel and you realize they're sitting there with a piece of paper and dipping the quill and writing word by word what what an avoda. And then the 1400s Gutenberg came up with a printing press. Yeah, it's a big step forward. And now you could set the type and put it on the ink and on a paper ink. You could print thousands of copies, theoretically hundreds of thousands of copies until you had to erase the ink, you know, wash it off, take all the little letters, put it back in their boxes, and set up the next page, which was also a tremendous avoda. Yeah. At least there were books, and books could get around books and periodicals. And there are those people who say that this is one of the things that changed history because now I could say something and that pamphlet um like they would say during revolutionary time war times in America, you know, they would these pamphleteers would put out these pamphlets and they would spread around and people would see them and and get ideas that otherwise you just had word of mouth to be able to spread around and to be able to spread all these ideas. laavil the thousands of pages of gumarra that they sat there and wrote out with the little quill on the little paper. Now you could print a shas the person could get a shas get a copy of a shas that was an amazing thing today forget about it all right so then they came out they came out with a telephone right now I can talk to somebody because until then you would write a letter and you would send it and it would take however long 6 months to get there during again the revolutionary war in America you know so they would send a letter to the king and then wait, you know, months for it to get there, months to get an answer back. You know, so now you could pick up a phone and talk to somebody miles away, hundreds of miles away, thousands of miles away. What a change. What an unbelievable thing. And then of course they came up with what we have today where you just type and a little image comes in and you can print it, you can send it, you can bring it out there, you can spread to millions of people on an idea. The Rambam writes that by the we were trying to uh bring certain basic ideas to the world and most of the world had not accepted it. meaning in the year 70 whether you were dealing with the Roman Empire or the Parthion Empire or any of the Germanic peoples or the Pacific Islands or the natives in North America. It didn't matter. Everybody were Ode. Everybody were polytheistic and believed in in the pantheon of gods. We were the only people teaching this concept of one God. So the Rambam famously says that Christianity and Islam came onto the scene to prepare the nations of the world for basic Jewish concepts. So now a lot of people in the world believe that there's one God, that he created the world in six days, that he gave the Torah to the Jews on Mount Si. that uh eventually he's going to bring a messiah that's going to bring perfection to the world that all these things are now accepted by million by billions of people on the face of the earth. Yeah. Monty Burgerer when he was uh teaching in discovery he tells the story that you know one time a guy says to him at the end of the discovery seminar he says okay I hear what you have to say here in the Jewish quarter he says but there are three other quarters here in in in Jerusalem I want to hear what they have to say he says I'll save your time the Christians the Muslims and the Armenians all believe that God created the world and gave the Torah to the Jewish people on Mount Si the only people who give me any trouble are the Jews This is the only place where I get a hard time. I think it was Shia Cohen who was once on a plane and this woman said, "You know the Jews are the chosen people." And he said, "Yeah, God gave the Bible to the Jews on Mount Si." He says, "Yeah." He says, "Every Christian believes that. How come Jews don't believe it?" He says, "Because you can believe it and do whatever you want. If we believe it, we have to keep Shabas. We have to keep kosher. We have a whole bunch of obligations that come along with it. So, you know, it's hard for us to realize it. But, but the majority of the world recognizes what the Torah concepts are that exists. What Mashiach comes, he's not starting from scratch. He's not coming into a world of vodora. For the most part, people do not take a vodor seriously anymore. There are places there are things that are considered a vodor. Yeah. I had a guy in or who was in one of the highest levels in Tai Chi. Now, Tai Chi, as far as I know, is just another fancy way of beating people up, which is what I find interesting. You know, these self-defense things. You know, Woody Allen used to tell a joke that he went to one of these self-defense courses and he doesn't had what it takes. So, he used to just pay the instructor to walk him home at night, you know, but um you know, karate, judo, jiujitsu, uh all these kind of things. So, it's another one. So, this person who was high up, he says, "No, it's Mamisha." I said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "It's all about your energy." He says, "So when you reach the highest level, listen to this. When you reach the highest level of Tai Chi, you have to perform the tea ceremony wherein you make a cup of tea and you put your energy into it." I said, "Did you reach that level?" He says, "No, but I reached the level where I was invited to participate in someone else's tea ceremony." I said, "What happened?" was I don't know what I was drinking, but it wasn't tea. Yeah, this is coffee. You could trust me on that. You know, um WC Fields famously used to carry a flask with him. When people asked what was in it, he'd say, "It's orange juice." And of course, it was whiskey, you know. So, one time someone took his flask and poured it out and filled it with orange juice, you know. So, he takes a swig, he spits it out. says, "Who switched my orange juice with orange juice?" But uh but for the most part, how seriously can you take a vodora when Thor is a member of the Avengers? You understand? Like how do you how do you look at the gods the same way, you know, when you try to take them seriously? Yeah. So, um uh you know, Hercules is a Disney movie. I these the the no one can actually take a voter seriously. I I'm sure I must have mentioned this in the past but do Cohen once was answering questions for AJOP the association of Jewish outreach professionals. I heard a recording of it and someone asked him you know we these out of town yeshivas were asked to teach uh Greek and Roman mythology. Are we allowed to teach it? And he says, "Yes, because did you ever wonder why our months are named after Babylonian gods? Because once BL fell, everyone realized that their gods were a joke." And so they uh the fact that we name our months after them is being is is of theor. So there's anybody who thinks the gods live up on Mount Olympus and actually you know have any power like you read in the Iliad in the Odyssey where the gods are intervening in man's affairs. I mean nobody believes that stuff. No one believes that um you know uh you know uh Thor uh was drinking uh the ocean from a from a cup. I mean these things are way beyond us. So people have have come around to this idea of understanding and with all of the effectiveness of these two franchises that have been going around and teaching about the basic questions of Judaism, what you can do today with these um with these uh internet tools to be able to reach I'm I'm saying millions, but apparently the most popular guy out there is this guy called Mr. Beast. I think he has a billion followers. A billion people watching this guy. I'll never forget when um Pesakron uh was quoting an article from Reader's Digest and uh about Mo Mo Furriststein. They had written an article. He says this was in Reader's Digest. and it has I forget how many millions of subscribers. Halai by he says the two biggest selling Jewish novels in history. I assume in recent history I don't know if if there were more copies in the in the time of the uh you know when the printing press came out but as far as we know is all for the boss and it's sad and time I think they sold 100,000 copies. Yeah that's like a you know if someone told me if you write a firm novel and you get 5,000 you sell 5,000 copies that's already considered you know a great seller. Um, so to be able to reach a billion people, be able to sit and to be able to say this is unbelievable. What's the problem? So this person I was meeting with, he says, "You need someone to open you up an Instagram account and a um and a Tik Tok account, you know." I said, "Well, I don't have Instagram." He says, "Don't get it." He says, "Because I have it." And you just spend all day scrolling, just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and looking at all the postings. I don't know if I would necessarily do that. Like I say, I don't even look at all my WhatsApps um because there's just too many of them. People say it's highly addictive and you get caught into it and you just go from one to the next to the next to the next and it doesn't stop. I spoke to somebody who said to me, I went on to YouTube shorts and one just goes into the next, goes into the next, goes into the next and uh I turn around, it's 3:00 in the morning. It just sucks you in. So, it's not like you could just turn around and look up something. There was this comedian I heard a routine when when I when I go to America sometimes I get Can I tell you? Everyone knows me already. I know Secrets by me. Um, when I rent a car, sometimes it comes with, um, uh, satellite radio and they have this comedy station where they have little, you know, bits from different comedians. Yeah, I listen to it sometimes, especially when I'm driving late at night. Keep me up. You know, you don't want to fall asleep at the wheel. My good friend David Haredim drove me back one night from Baltimore and it was really pretty late and I said, "Are you going to be able to stay up cuz I don't know if I can stay up." He goes, "Don't worry." And he turns on this loud Mexican music. He says, "There's no way to sleep through this." I turn a little comedy bit. So, this guy was talking about he was so old back when there was like a Blackberry, you know, and he says, uh, you know, he says, "I I I look at my Blackberry when I'm driving and it's really not, you know, um, so, uh, he says, um, you know, comedian so and so died in a fiery, uh, car crash. He was looking up on his uh uh on his uh Blackberry whether so and so had appeared in a particular movie. Um spokesman for this actor said uh that in fact he did appear in the movie and hopes that this will avoid any other movie related accidents. But I saw a short film once of people who killed people while they were texting, you know, and they were talking to the the murderers, you know, and they were like, "I just went to send this message." He goes, "But if you would have said to me, you're driving down the highway, close your eyes for 10 seconds." I would say, "What are you crazy?" He says, "But that's what I do every time I look down to text." And people get stuck. who get stuck in these things. So like all things something can be used as a um as a tool for unbelievable and also could be used for terrible things and it has that danger of that form. So I guess if you're going to become addicted to Instagram it would be better if you're addicted to Rabiolski shorts. Now there are certain places out there that you know they put up like a minute for one of my shirm. They clip a minute for my shim. They don't ask me. They clip a minute for my shim and then they sell it for like 12,000 sponsors and they make a million dollars and they put up one minute of me talking. And I'm like my gosh, you can go to my website for free, you know. But um uh but why? Because people don't want to listen to so much. people want just here. Yeah. A minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes maximum. Yeah. So, um uh so he was giving me different ideas of you know various things that I talk about which I could just turn into a a little 3, four, 5 minute, you know, video that people would love to watch. Just a little idea. Yeah. So uh so okay there's this unbelievable opportunity but that's nothing compared to the to the threat of AI. Listen to this story. I heard this story. I read it someplace. I didn't check it out. Not pes but I read this story and it's maf. Listen to this story. This girl it's from girl gets a phone call from her mother. meet me in such and such a place. She gets there and there's some guy there waiting for her. He got chat GPT to imitate her voice and called up and had it play her mother's voice so that she would come out. Everyone knows uh I hope everyone knows that I have an alter ego and that is a character called Rabbi Sitter and uh to live with Dan Roth. We had him on the show. We spoke about it. Um uh would uh make me an animated character. We would uh have different uh different scenarios etc. So since I have to go into the studio and record etc. So in the meantime he had me record my voice and now they can use my voice to make anything they want. Now based on the jokes that chat GPT came up with I think my position is still somewhat secure. They're not at the point yet where they can actually replicate, you know, my quirky sense of humor, but um but they uh they have my voice down and apparently they get me they said the only thing we can't do is get your laugh. I don't know why it doesn't get your laugh out, you know, but uh imitate my voice to the point where you can make any picture you want and your momish don't know what's MS and what's checking. You can I can I can give you a picture of anybody doing anything you want. Now, this was driven home to me years ago and I'm sure I spoke about this at the time when and the person told me uh I used to work out at the gym and uh um I I didn't go to the gym yesterday so that makes about six years. But um I used to go to the gym and one of the guys there was a photographer and he said to me I can do anything they want today. He says I haveim who get married and ask me to make them more Aryanl looking. I have a program that can make their features less Middle Eastern looking. He says, "I can give you pictures of the dancing with anybody you want." You know, you want to be dancing with Feinstein, of Jakob Kavetski, the I can have a picture of you dancing with anything you want. They drew up a little line drawing of the Lakewood Yoshiva to put on their stationary and um uh Revan Cutler uh looked at it and he said, "What's this tree?" He says, "What do you mean?" He says, "There's a tree on this side of the yeshiva, but there's no tree on that side of the yeshiva." He says, "Yeah, it's it's to give the picture symmetry." He says, "No, it's sheer. There's no tree there. Take the tree out. Amazing. But today with AI, I can give you anything you want. I can create any reality you want and you can move into this fantasy existence. So now my son-in-law teaches in yeshiva and he said by the khan miba I told the boys you know everyone has to come with vattor he says and a few of the boys came with a very nice varra and I said how did you prepare this says chat gpt I said I'm going to a kaneka miba I need a divora this long on this topic da da da da and it printed it right out for me. How does Chad GPT know who I am? That would fit Rabbi Devalovski's signature style combining Torah insight, practical life guidance, and humor. Well, yeah. Okay, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Which means eventually no one's going to need me. They can apparently AI will reach the point where we can recreate almost anything. I remember this was a major thing when for years they would have these chess programs and grand chess masters would defeat the program until at one point they came out with a program that was so good that it beat chess masters. What's going to happen? I mean, if somebody can go to AI and have them diagnose their illness better than um uh better than doctors. So, are people going to be turning to AI for and ask them is this mut is this asser? And let me explain to you what I think is the frightening aspect of this. Yeah. Um, Rabbi Simcala was a RV of a Moraxual in in Brooklyn before he uh became uh the head of his major organization, Kai Lifeline. And somebody in the Schul asked him whether he'd be allowed to do something and he told him it was Mut. And then somebody else asked him the same question and he said it's user. And the fellow was furious. And at the next board meeting he wanted to pass a rule that the rabbi has to give the same answer to everybody. [Laughter] So who needs a rabbi? Who needs a rabbi? I'm sure I told this story years ago that there is a shaw on Long Island where they sent out a questionnaire to every member that was not supposed to be spread, but someone showed it to someone I knew because they were just horrified. Uh they were firing the rabbi because they said he's too old. He had been there for 3 years. And uh he told me, he says, "When they hired me, did they think I was going to get younger over the next 3 years? And if I seem to have aged quickly, maybe it's because of them. But they're going to hire a new rabbi. And they sent out a questionnaire. Do you want a rabbi who will a raise the makita, b lower the makita, c keep it the same? Do you want the rabbi's wife to A cover a hair, b not cover hair, cover a hair a little bit? Which schools do you think it would be okay for the rabbi to say, and this was the question there. So, who needs a who needs a rabbi? Especially today with AI. Get an AI rabbi. Get an actor to get up there and read whatever you write for him and say whatever you want him to say. There have been a number of times in my life when I've had um major life decisions. And I remember I would speak to people and they say, "Well, if you go to this this place, he's going to tell you it's mut. If you go to this one, he's going to tell you to. If you go to this one, he's going to tell you this. They had the whole thing all worked out. And I never found that they ever gave me the answer that they told me because they saw me as a person. They got into my essence and he need a certain I think it was if I remember the Gar correctly where he was standing outside of the base med and as everybody came out he said today he says I said this was Mut and he said why and he told him why and he shrugged him up and the guy says what's he says no no it was mut and then he comes out next guy comes out he says where'd you pass today I said this is tame He says why? He tells him the logic and he slugs him up. And he says what's the he says tell me. He says to what's says gives to the who are going to the forel that he's there to protect the tyra and and therefore it's considered an onesh if they get it wrong as you know in the garan giddon it says yman zakai uh was asked by vespasian what do you want as a reward he asked for three things. The Gammorra says, "Why didn't he ask that he not destroy the base of Mikdash?" And the Gar gives two answers. One answer is he was afraid that that was too much already and he'd end up with nothing. The other answer is you're right, made a mistake. Now, Keshu wanted him to make that mistake obviously. So, he made that mistake. It was a mistake that took place. But it wouldn't have happened if a bar was giving you dishes. There's a famous story with Misha Feinstein where this woman comes to him and says you know after the war after World War II um you know I had aid him that my husband was dead I went to this RV so and so and he gave me a sock that I could get remarried and I did and I have children and now my husband showed up. So Marsha looks at the lady and says tell the story again. He says, "I was in Europe. I was in the camps. You know, when I came out, you know, I went to this rough. I gave him my uh my evidence." And he said, "I get married. Tell me the story again." And after three times, he says, "You're lying." And she started crying and she said, "I know. I thought my husband was dead, and I didn't think I had to ask anybody." And turns out he's alive. But how did you know I was lying? He says, "I knew that, RV. He couldn't make a mistake. You hear? Now, AI can't rec recreate that, recreate that. Yeah. AI is not going to be able to do that for you. It's not going to give you that dish. It's not going to There's still something to being human. there's still something to the human brain when it comes to creativity that uh that an AI system is not going to be able to capture. And so uh we're moving into very dangerous times because a muscle that is not used atrophies. Um, there was a time when a person could take a receipt, a long receipt, and add it up in their head like this because those those were the skills that they learned when they were in school. Today, you ask a kid, "What's 6* 7?" He pulls out his calculator. Yeah. To look it up. Now, people don't even bother memorizing the times table anymore. What do I need it for? People don't think. They rely on technology to do everything for them. And that is scary because if you don't learn how to use your brain and I've said this many times, how many times you see a kid and she go like, "Okay, Rabbi, let's see if there's anything you have to say that going to interest me." It's depressing. It's depressing and it's a mitz. So, this is a challenge. How are we going to deal with it? the same way we do with every other challenge without any idea whatsoever. Um somebody told me once big person he says when everybody had internet downloads the yeshivas were assering music CDs that's what they were up to and the technology had morphed three four generations later and nobody was up for it nobody nobody thought these things through and how we're supposed to deal with it and just don't doesn't work. So, how do we face these challenges? Understand I have no answers to these questions. But Elon Musk is talking about putting a chip in your brain to be able to enhance your ability to think and to be able to do things and to remember stuff and it's going to interact with your brain. What does that do? I was in Toronto I don't know how many years ago it was and I was talking with Rabbi Dr. Nosen Westrich who I had this of knowing when he was original director of NCSY and he went on to become an actual psychiatrist not a psychologist a psychiatrist and he said to me I'm looking for an answer why anybody needs muser anymore because anyone who has any kind of mida I just have to give them the right drug and I can change them into whatever I want. I can change their personality. I can alter whatever I want. I can use drug therapy and make people into anything. So what does that mean when we say people have to change their amidos? Cuz the times they are changing as this Jewish guy once saying, Robert Zimmerman. Yeah. Yeah. The times are changing and they're going faster and faster and we have to try to think ahead and anticipate. Yeah. And that's why when the would make gazer make they were looking ahead. They were they were looking not for this door but for the next door and the door after that and what's going to be and how do you take this into account and you have to think ahead. You have to be able to look ahead and this is uh posing a challenge that trust me the outside world doesn't even know how to handle the Jewish world and we need to be able to figure out to have our Torah navigate these very difficult times. And that's it for this week. If you want to find out more about my show, you can go to my website raviolaski.com. You can sign up for one of the online shiior. You can uh download articles. Uh you can ask a question, make a comment, sponsor an episode. And that's it for now. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, ready to go. The Rabbi Olavski Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, though. We hope. 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