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Sep 20, 2023
Interesting Psak: AI making haredi women obsolete
In recent years it has become popular for Haredi seminary students to learn programming for a future career in which they can better support their learning husbands, rather than the old style studies of teachers certificates and accounting.
The recent advent of Artificial Intelligence seems to have some worried about their future parnasa capabilities. Parents of a Haredi seminary student asked Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein, rav of Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei Braq, if their daughter should change fields and study something else as programming very well might become obsolete as AI itself will do do a lot of the programming at a higher level than trained programmers. While programmers will still be needed, the concern is that specifically the Haredi women will be the first to lose their jobs and be replaced by AI because of being late tot he game and being less trained and less experienced overall (individuals might be different, but as a whole this is the concern). The cost of the studies is high and if their field will go away, perhaps they should train in other studies?
According to Kikar, Rav Zilbershtein responded that proof of God is that we still have workers in every type of work in the world at all different levels, and everyone loves his (or her) work and goes to work happily.
Before continuing I would just personally point out that plenty of people do not love their work and plenty of people go to work less than happy. But they do still go to work and perform as they must because they need to pay the mortgage and bring home the facon.
Back to the response of Rav Zilbershtein...
Rav Zilbershtein says the reason for this is that for the sustenance of the world this is necessary to have all this work done and for all the people to have their parnassa - there are people who have to collect the garbage and others who fix the sewage systems, etc. so during creation God gave out the different attributes to different people for the tasks they would later accomplish, along with the pull to those fields.
If everybody wanted to work in only a specific field because it earns more or is more respectable, or is easy or whatnot, the world would not last as many other jobs would just not get done as nobody would want to do them.
Therefore, Rav Zilbershtein said, there is nothing to worry about. It is possible AI might make many positions redundant but God will not abandon the world and nobody will be left without parnassa. If the student has a pull to the field of programming and sees that as her calling, that means God has given her those attributes and direction and He wont leave her without parnassa.
Even though it is true that sometimes some fields become obsolete, but God provides for those workers by sending other jobs and opportunities, so even if AI makes some fields obsolete, there will be others ceated, and everyone will have parnassa.
God controls the world and makes sure everything runs well. We just have to worry about sustaining the world through our Torah and mitzvos. Leave the rest to God running the world better than anyone else can.
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Since it is artificial intelligence, their prediction is totally artificial and it will be the Orthodox
ReplyDeleteand G-D fearing chareidi women who, in the end, will be the winners, while 'artificial intelligence' will be gone.
Artificial intelligence will now be with us forever, but it is unlikely that it will be able to replace humans in the coming years.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I remember when people said computers would make secretaries and clerical workers obsolete. (Yeah, I'm that old.) That didn't happen. If anything there is more work, assuming you are skilled at using the computer and the programs that are commonly used in office work.
DeleteHarry S Truman is reported to have expressed concern with technology - what will people do with their spare time when machines do all the work? What jobs will they do? And somehow we're busier than ever.
ReplyDeleteBut I've been saying this for years - the minute human parthenogenesis is invented, the Chareidim will physically eliminate women. All births will be male and in 2 generations, "We've always all been men!"
I have no idea whether IA will take over hi-tech jobs, however I don't understand Rav Zilbershtein's argument.
ReplyDeleteThere are many jobs that have become largely obsolete with technology over the past several decades. How many blacksmiths are there, or Shoemakers, or even Tailors (compared to the pre-sewing machine era)
If you can only do basic programming, you job may well be replaced by AI.
If you are the top of your field, your job is secure.
Is Rav Zilbershtein convinced that all Haredi women doing programming courses will be the top if their field?
His position is that Hashem provides, and if someone's job becomes obsolete, they will find some other means of livelihood. True, if a job is already obsolete, like a blacksmith, then it is foolish to train in that. But for the foreseeable future, computer programming will remain lucrative, or at least sustaining. So one should not worry about it if that is what you want to train in.
DeleteHowever, historically when a job became obsolete, it was because it was replaced by a newer one that still required labour. Carriages were replaced by cars but people were still needed to replaced them.
ReplyDeleteAI, however, not only replaces people but then directed the robots on the assembly lines who also replaced people. Where do the people then go?