[Avodah] Sephardi-ism: some food for thought

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:20:02 -0500
Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 06, 2008 at 11:42:00PM EST, R Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> : On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Yitzhak Grossman <celejar at gmail.com> wrote:
> :> On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 17:56:55 -0500 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> :> ...
> :>> RRW seems to be descriing a world in which someday a good peice of
> :>> software running atop the Bar Ilan CD might be a better poseiq than
> :>> any human.
> 
> :> This could be true independent of any model of Halachah and Pesak, if
> :> one assumes the possibility of the development of serious AI.

...

> Then I wrote the line RYG commented upon. (IIUC, he was confused by my use
> of the general term "AI", saying good AI would be subjective anyway.)

*Now* I'm confused, by your reference to "my use of the general term
AI".  Your original message didn't contain any such term.

> I wasn't commenting on your criticism, but your desire for objectivity
> "regardless of what system" which I thought meant you assumed agreement.
> 
> To repeat what I was trying to say in a manner that avoids what I believe
> was RYG's confusion:
> 
> Is the ideal poseiq a database plus some natural language software (to
> convert the sefarim into some data structure) and an algorithm? That would
> be the ultimate in objectivity -- but it would minimize the humanity of
> our contribution to the halachic process.

I don't think this would be "the ultimate in objectivity"; without real
AI, the software couldn't possibly generate any real Pesak, since Pesak
involves human level reasoning, unless you're referring to the narrow
case of simply resolving conflicting opinions, without any creativity
in the sense of extending existing law to novel cases, or the arguing
for or against given positions based on other sources within the
Halachah.

Yitzhak
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