It’s the new normal. Lately I’ve been chatting with bots.
Sometimes I don’t even know it’s a bot. So much for my sixth sense …
It seems so realistic until it isn’t. Admittedly it could be helpful yet It’s simply not like chatting with a real person.
Like, can a bot gossip?
Strange proof you may be thinking. Yet a quick perusal of this week’s Torah portion will illuminate this example.
You see, the Torah relates of a particular skin ailment that results from gossiping and chatting about others — the consequence of which the afflicted person requiring being quarantining outside the living area. ( thankfully this no longer happens).
It’s not quarantine in the medical sense as it wasn’t a medical ailment it was one of a spiritual nature. It was quarantine for the benefit of sitting alone and reflecting on behavior. Sort of like time-out. Quite progressive if you think about it.
It suddenly occurs to me, bots also don’t have time-out. How could they? They can't self reflect…
At the end of the day, human behavior is one that can stumble and at the same time it can repair and rebuild. Human are, well let’s just say human and that means we aren’t perfect and that’s just fine because that’s what life is all about and that’s the way Gd designed us. Yet it’s not the way Gd encourages us to remain.
We are here to live. To live is to be human. To be human is to work on perfecting. Our selves, our surroundings —and by extension the entire world.
Turns out, bots can be quite helpful but they can’t gossip and that is a problem!