Aspaqlaria

Keeping Torah and Values in Focus

Category: Process

GPT Token Vectors show words in logical relative positions. 0

Process

PoseiqGPT?

Dear R Dr Bryode (Cc: Avodah),

Over Shabbos, I read your article about getting ChatGPT to discuss whether a kohein in a same-sex marriage may go up to duchen….

First, a large language model isn’t an AI in the sense of having a good representation of what it is talking about. Words are assigned strings of numbers, vectors, that do correlate to the word’s usage. So that king minus male will bring you to a similar vector as queen minus female. And GPT has a system for using context to distinguish the uses of the word “flies” in
“Time flies like an arrow, but
fruit flies like bananas.”

Rupture and Reconstruction at 25 Years 0

Process

Rupture and Reconstruction at 25 Years

(This article originally appeared on Torah Musings, and the improved readability over my usual fare is due to the deft hand of Rabbi Gil Student. For which I’m very grateful.)

Bottom to Top 0

Clothing / Process

Bottom to Top

1. The Setup A discussion on Facebook made me realize that my own attitude toward halakhah is quite different than Rav Hershel Schachter’s. If I thought there was only one right approach, I’d bet...

Textualism and the Mishnah Berurah 0

Process

Textualism and the Mishnah Berurah

I Dr Haym Solovetichik, in his famous paper “Rupture and Reconstruction“, describes a difference between the the Mishnah Berurah and the Arukh haShulchan as follows: This dual tradition of the intellectual and the mimetic, law as...

Halakhah and Virtue Ethics 0

Process

Halakhah and Virtue Ethics

In 1967 Phillippa Foote raised a thought experiment philosophers call the Runaway Trolly Problem. Here is how wikipedia describes it: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks,...

Baal Nefesh Yachmir 0

Process

Baal Nefesh Yachmir

Continuing on the prior post… A recurring topic on Avodah is the Mishnah Berurah’s use of the concept of ba’al nefesh yachmir, that while the halakhah itself allows for some leniency, “one who masters...

Eilu va’Eilu part II 0

Process

Eilu va’Eilu part II

[Updated 1/9/2014. The story so far: In part I I gave a survey of opinions from rishonim discussed in essays by RM Halbertal and Rav Michael Rosensweig.] RMHalbertal spelled out three approaches to machloqes:...

Halakhah and Orthodoxy 0

Process

Halakhah and Orthodoxy

(Much of this is a popularization of things already posted in this category, originally posted to Facebook.) As I see it, halachic decision-making involves the weighing of numerous items — the strength of the...

Tzav 0

Process

Tzav

Halakhah is the means G-d gave us to actively and creatively complete ourselves, to use our Image-of-G-d ability to be who choose to make ourselves and become ever close to that “Image”. The word...