Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.13.18
Posted on February 13th, 2018
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The largest portal Breaking Israel News published article based on my interview with Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz: “Artificial intelligence in the End-of-Days: Killer Bots for Gog or Dry Bones to Praise God?”
And He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of Hashem!” Ezekiel 37:4 (The Israel Bible™)
Artificial intelligence is advancing at a lightning pace and is already being adopted for military use, raising questions as to what role this powerful new technology will play in the end-of-days. Will it be a terrifying rogue combatant in the final Biblical War of Gog and Magog, or will it be an unforeseen savior of mankind and even have a possible role in the resurrection of the dead?
In one potential end-of-days scenario, technology plays a destructive role for humanity. A video, titled “Slaughterbots” and produced by the notorious Campaign to Stop Killer Robots illustrates this outcome in which autonomous drones armed with explosive charges wreak havoc on society. The video is part of a campaign intended to ban lethal autonomous weapons, a concern which clearly resonates with many as the petition has already garnered over 20,000 signatures.
Aspects of the fictitious future depicted in the video are appearing to become reality. Both India and Japan announced this week that they are beginning to introduce autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) into their defense sectors.
At the same time, governments also recognize that the destructive potential of AI raises moral difficulties. British Prime Minister Theresa May announced this week that her government is establishing an advisory body to coordinate with other countries in discussing how artificial intelligence can be used ethically for military purposes.
It seems that any future war, including the pre-Messianic War of Gog and Magog, will include killer robots, and many spiritual leaders are already considering how AI figures into a religious vision of the end-of-days. Rabbi Michael Laitman, a leading expert in Kabbalah and the founder of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah association, believes that technology and more specifically artificial intelligence, will play a major role in the end-of-days but not necessarily a positive one.
“It is clear in Kabbalah that in the times preceding geula (redemption), Man is going to utilize the entire potential of technology,” Rabbi Laitman told Breaking Israel News. “Men will begin to create artificial intelligence. People will want to achieve something similar to the creation of Man.”
“In the time of the geula, people will understand that all of this development, all throughout history, is what brought us to an even greater collapse,” he stressed. “This will become very clear in war when we see that all of the technology we developed for man’s good can immediately turn around and be used against man.”
Rabbi Laitman believes that the same motives of Man which led to the construction of the Tower of Babel are also in play with the development of artificial intelligence.
“Men wanted to ascend to the heavens and become like God,” the rabbi explained. “To do this, they were dealing with the basic foundations of creation. They wanted to fix something inside man they believed was a blemish.”
Though this motive sounds noble, Rabbi Laitman pointed out a flaw that turned their good intentions into evil.
“This came from a place of ego, in which they wanted to take the place of God,” Rabbi Laitman said.
In an article that Rabbi Laitman published last Friday in Breaking Israel News, he outlined the dangers of artificial intelligence but also described a solution in containing potential problems.
“Unfortunately, I do believe that AI-powered weapons will be developed,” the rabbi wrote. “If we upgraded our human consciousness at least as much as we upgraded our technologies, then we would have no fear of creating AI terminators that would be capable of eliminating us. Instead, we would further our research to discover a technology more sophisticated than AI, and energy more powerful than nuclear energy.”
Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, a senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law, speculated that AI would, in fact, play a more positive role in the Messiah.
“Some people have proposed an apocalyptic vision of AI in which Man and machine merge in the End of Days, suggesting that this would be tchiyat hametim (resurrection of the dead),” he told Breaking Israel News.
He also described efforts to upload the entirety of an individual’s knowledge to a computer.
“Some scientists think they are on the path to achieving this and in some form replicating or even recreating the consciousness of individuals,” Rabbi Goldfeder said. “This is not the traditional understanding of tchiyat hametim and not one that I ascribe to, but that being the case, I can’t imagine why it would be problematic as something else entirely if it is done with proper consent.”
The rabbi suggested that at some point in the future theologians will have to determine whether AI should be considered sentient and human.
“The line between Man and machine in the Torah is not as clear as what we would like to think it is,” the rabbi said.
Although AI poses many ethical and theological questions, Rabbi Goldfeder thinks that not only is this a good thing but that the development of technology was in fact intended by God to be part of Man’s role in being a partner with God in Creation.
“One of the first commandments we received was to conquer the world, which we understand as that doing your best to participate with God in creation,” Rabbi Goldfeder said, citing Genesis.
Hashem blessed them and Hashem said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; Genesis 1:28
“All these forces were put in nature and they are amoral, not immoral; what we do with them establishes good or evil,” explained Rabbi Goldfeder. “Artificial intelligence has the ability to help us do incredible good.”
Rabbi Goldfeder believes AI will continue to be important even after the arrival of the Messiah.
“People tend to think of y’mot ha’moshiach (Messianic era) as going back to Biblical times,” Rabbi Goldfeder told Breaking Israel News. “I assume the Third Temple will make absolute use of every technology we have available.”
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Every year people from most countries of the world, come to experience a unity that is beyond borders, beyond nations. A unity that is rooted in learning how to sense the innate wiring for connection we have, guided by the authentic Wisdom of Kabbalah. #convention #israel
My latest on @newsmax Suicide Rise After Robin Williams Signals Need for Media Revolution “… increase of almost 10% in suicide rates across the U.S. had a lot to do with how the media communicated the suicide to the public.” #suicide #robinwilliams
Psalm_95 Let us bow before our Maker. For He is our GOD & we are His people. O if you would heed His voice! For forty years I loathed this generation and I said: it is a people lost in their heart, they don’t know My ways. And I swore in My anger that they will not enter My rest.
Psalm_94. GOD of Vengeance, Judge of the Earth, recompense to the proud! How long shall they exult? LORD knows thoughts of man, so vain. Blessed is whom You chasten and whom You teach Torah. If the LORD were not my help, my soul would dwell in the grave. But GOD is my stronghold!
#Kabbalist_advice #”Sin” is when I disconnect from the thought that the Creator is in everything, and think that the life-giving, governing force isn’t really in control, but I am, or some other forces of nature are. #Wisdom #Kabbalah #quoteoftheday
#Kabbalist_advice – What does it mean to cheat on one’s spiritual path? – Changing the intention from bestowal and aspiration toward the Creator to the opposite. #Wisdom
Without profits #capitalism dies. The #markets are stagnant. Capitalism grows bubbles to ensure required measure of profits, but a crash is inevitable, as the #financial_bubble can’t last. But the ego can’t conceive of another principle. The answer lies in escaping the ego itself
Psalm_93 LORD King. He clothes with majesty, girded with strength. Firmly the world is established, will not be moved. Floods lifted their voice. Stronger than mighty waves of the sea- the LORD high up. Your testimonies are fully true, holiness befits Your house forevermore, LORD
#Kabbalist_advice Question: We know what crime is in this world. But what is a crime in the spiritual world? Answer: 1. There’s only one kind of crime in the #spiritual world: not growing closer with others so as to reveal the Creator in them. #Wisdom #success
#Kabbalist_advice 2. There is just one commandment, i.e. one good deed and one evil deed. A good deed is when you grow closer with others and reveal the Creator in this unity, and an evil deed is anything that opposes this. #Wisdom #success
A true #terrorist is everyone’s hatred toward others. By extinguishing it, we destroy the basis of evil in the world. #Motivation
The #Club_of_Rome came up with a new enlightenment idea. At the center of attention r problems of education & upbringing. Shaping a new mindset requires serious changes—self-restrictions won’t do anything, the ego won’t allow for any. We’re going to have to rise above it.
From Twitter, 2/12/18
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Question: In the year 2018 will there be less stupidity in the world? Or vice versa, the more there is, the closer we will come to discovering it is foolishness?
Answer: Both. Two opposites are necessary. On one hand, there will be much more stupidity, as we now see in politics. On the other hand, there will be many people who understand that this is stupidity, insignificant, and dirt.
This will change the general state of nature, the network of forces we are in. We don’t have any need for rulers and there is nothing to expect from them, nor from the intellectual and bourgeois elites who seem to hold the world in their hands.
The desire of the masses to change the situation and unite with each other correctly will gradually lead to a change in everything that nobody can oppose.
Question: Baal HaSulam said that first it is necessary to educate the entire generation, and then they will choose the right leader. How, in your opinion, should the system of government of the future be?
Answer: It is only through the method of correcting the person, through educating the person, that people whose foremost concern is society’s welfare will gradually make their way into governance.
Question: But will one person rule, like kings in the past, or will it be a society?
Answer: I think that it will be a community, but very small, a kind of Sanhedrin as was established in ancient times. It included 71 people who managed the spiritual life. I don’t think you need any more than that.
Each one of them will take responsibility for one system or another of the union: One will be responsible for the system of children, a second for the system of women, a third for the field of science, and so forth. They will solve all questions collectively.
They will be chosen by the overwhelming opinion of the masses who will feel and “smell” who these people are that can manage them. Baal HaSulam writes about this at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”
Question: Can you tell when this will happen?
Answer: No. But it seems that during the course of the next two or three years humanity will understand that all the systems must be replaced; otherwise, we will reach a dead end.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/24/17
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Question: If a person is alone but has watched the recorded daily lessons for more than ten consecutive years, is virtually present in the conventions, prays for the world group, and connects everything to “There is none else besides Him,” does this advance him spiritually?
Answer: It advances him to a certain extent, but working in a group is imperative to enter spirituality.
Question: How is it possible to provide for someone else, to become one with him and feel him as myself? Must I compare him to myself, even though I don’t understand myself? And what must I do when others try to fulfill me?
Answer: These questions are solved only in a group, a group of ten.
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Question: You were with your teacher Rabash for 12 years. After eight or ten years you already knew a lot, you wrote books. Did you have the feeling that you no longer had anything to learn from him?
Answer: Yes, there were states like that. They were accompanied by internal tension and resentment.
For example, the teacher explains, but you already know that listening to an explanation is not enough. We must somehow overcome the potential internal barrier, but you cannot overcome it. And, of course, there are problems. It is here that you have to cancel yourself, and this is contrary to the desire.
Question: Did Rabash tell you how he had to nullify himself to Baal HaSulam?
Answer: He didn’t say that, but he casually mentioned a few times that it was very difficult for him because it is even more difficult to nullify yourself to your father.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17
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Question: Why are there so few Kabbalists in the world?
Answer: To discover the upper world, a Kabbalist or two are enough, and after that a few dozen more, and others must adhere to them. Everything descends and moves downward in a pyramid.
Today, those who methodically study the wisdom of Kabbalah in our world community are enough to be ready to bring the upper Light into our world. What remains is only for the rest of the world to join us somehow.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “600,00 Souls”
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