AI Can Imitate Kindness. But Can It Care? Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

AI is getting frighteningly clever. It can write poetry, compose symphonies, diagnose diseases, and produce remarkably convincing imitations of human conversation. It can even write a clever divar Torah. Which raises an interesting question. If a computer can imitate [music] human intelligence, could it also imitate human goodness, human kindness? In parshat Vayeira, Avraham Avinu is sitting at the entrance to his tent recovering from his bris milah, his [music] circumcision. It's an unbearably hot day. Hashem has deliberately made the weather uncomfortable so that guests wouldn't trouble him, but Avraham is suffering. Not suffering from the heat, not suffering from pain. He was suffering because there are no guests. And when three strangers finally appear, Avraham runs to greet them. A 90-year-old man, a 99-year-old man, recovering from surgery, runs to serve people he's never met. Now, a sufficiently sophisticated AI robot could do all that. It could run to greet the guests, give them a well-rehearsed AI welcoming gambit, prepare the meal, serve the guests, and remember everyone's dietary preferences. It might even do so more efficiently than Avraham Avinu. But there's one thing it couldn't do. It couldn't want to give. Abraham wasn't merely performing acts of kindness. He was becoming a person whose very existence was an expression of that kindness. Hashem wants us to be kind not because the world is a nicer place to be in when people are kind, not because things get done better when people are kind, but because when we are kind, when we act with kindness, we become more like him. And the more like him we become, the more his purpose in creating the world is actualized. And that's something no computer can manufacture. AI may one day imitate almost everything a human being can do. But there's a world of difference between simulating kindness and possessing a soul that longs to give. A computer can be programmed to say, "Hi, how can I help you today?" Abram Ovino didn't need programming. He couldn't bear not to help.