AI Teaches Basi Legani to the Rebbe’s Audio

This year’s shiur by “Evan” the AI Rabbi is a whole new experience: The original audio from the Rebbe’s maamar is inter-spliced with AI explanation and a chat loaded with 21 texts. “It’s a whole new way to learn a maamar,” was the initial feedback.

This year’s shiur by “Evan” the AI Rabbi is a whole new experience. The original audio from the Rebbe’s maamar is inter-spliced with AI explanation. “It’s a whole new way to learn a maamar,” was the initial feedback. “This is not a gimmick.”

The shiur, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more, covers the first half of the maamar from 5725.

The team at New Era Solutions, a programming firm, fed the Rebbe’s audio directly to the AI. Last year this wasn’t possible, but today the AI understands Yiddish audio natively. We shared the text of shiurim with the AI, from different mashpiim and teachers like Rabbi Fishel Oster, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel, Rabbi YY Jacobson and more, as the maamar progressed, and we also went back and forth with Evan to make sure he understood everything correctly.

Another enhancement: Instead of texting Evan, we set up an AI chat with 21 source texts, including the original maamorim of 5725 and 5745 and transcripts of 16 shiurim, where users can interact with the maamar and get answers quoting the texts directly, and even collaborate with other users by sharing snippets or comments.

It’s still very important to note our disclaimer, that while with any shiur there is room for error, when it comes to AI it’s very important to remember that the machine is not built from scratch on Torah, and we have to be careful with the content which it produces. There was heavy editing on the final audio, and multiple takes during the process. Any feedback or notes are welcome and can be submitted by visiting https://newera.now.

A good example is that the AI again this year refused to accept the concept of עמך כולם צדיקים – that all Jews are righteous… “The fact that some areas of Chassidus and of our worldview diverge so starkly from the AI’s way of thinking is a reminder of our important mission to share the teaching of Chassidus even further, until it can be understood – and until it is the basic premise – of even an AI,” says Rayi Stern, who spearheaded the project. “AI will very soon be doing much of the thinking for the whole world, so the time is now. We need to all be having this discussion.”

This shiur is going to be closer to a straightforward translation that gets the point across, rather than a deep dive or revisiting of definitions of terminology in Chassidus. That can be done also, but the creators of the podcast did not see that as a goal right now.

This was 10x easier, cheaper, and faster than last year’s podcast. The final product is quite different; in many ways much better. It’s always a work in progress, but can you imagine what we’ll see next year?

Every day there’s another breakthrough in AI. While the world may grapple with how AI aligns with humanity’s goals, AI clearly is representative of Torah’s vision for a world where abundance is the norm, information is everywhere, ‘now’ is the new timeframe, and אבן מקיר תזעק – the inanimate will teach us all.

Join the bandwagon by visiting https://newera.now, chatting with Evan, or emailing stern@trisso.com for more information on this and other initiatives in progress.

Click here to find the podcast on your platform.

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