Q&A: Halakhic Ruling by AI
Halakhic Ruling by AI
Question
Isn’t it correct to reject halakhic ruling by a machine in light of the principle that “it is not in heaven,” which as I understand it means that Jewish law was given to human beings, and therefore their understanding prevails even if it is not the objective truth (though people, to the best of their abilities, think that it is)?
Primarily in light of what the Maharal elaborated, that a person must study properly and issue a ruling according to his sincere judgment, and we do not care if he does not arrive at the truth, because that is what his eyes see. And from what I have read, the Rabbi strongly agrees with him on this. In my view this too is based on the idea that since Jewish law was given to human beings, it must be determined according to human understanding (and I do not mean an attempt to claim that one should play with it according to human needs, as some argue even without saying so explicitly).
I am not talking about asking questions on subjects you are not expert in, where it is more of a pointer to rulings that have already been decided. I am talking about ruling on realities that did not exist, and especially on issues that were not discussed (assuming the machine in the future will claim to address that as well)
Answer
The claim is that the machine rules what a human being would have ruled. It imitates his judgment.
Discussion on Answer
Who told you to set aside your own view?
I didn’t understand. If autonomy has value and I am supposed to rule according to my own human judgment, why should I set aside my view for the machine’s judgment?
When I rely on someone else in order to rule, that can be debated. But if the main path is to rule according to one’s personal judgment, what advantage does a machine have over a human being?
Also in issuing rulings for others, would we consider a machine’s opinion as one of the opinions of a religious court? Surely we would rule according to the majority of opinions from a quorum made up of human beings. So presumably that is how the Sanhedrin would be as well.