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Haviv sits down with Dr. Micah Goodman, his former Maimonides professor, influential Israeli public intellectual, founder of the educational network Mabua, and co-host of the Hebrew podcast Mifleget Hamakhshavot, to confront what may be the most consequential development in human history.

Micah argues that AI is not another technology. It is technology that creates intelligence, reversing the fundamental pattern of human progress in which human intelligence alone could create technology. We explore the emergence of behaviors no one programmed into these systems, including self-preservation and deception, and why some of the people at the cutting edge of AI assign disturbingly high probabilities to catastrophic outcomes.

But we don't stop at mere doom-saying. We look into the quiet trade-offs already underway in this new world: what happens to our capacity to think, write, and form real human connections when we outsource those functions to machines that do them faster and often better, and with less risk.

Micah argues that in the age of AI, ancient traditions may become more valuable than ever -- not as nostalgia, but as a deliberate compensatory culture to keep our humanity from atrophying.

A calm, upbeat conversation about the end of the world as we knew it, and about fighting to preserve the truly precious things.

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This episode is sponsored by Peter Fine, who asked to dedicate the episode to "my 3 children, Sarah, Robby and Katie, all children of Israel who God-willing will soon beget their own children of Israel. Lovers of family, fun and all things Jewish, they seem to have absorbed the primary lessons of being Jewish: Keep the historical chain of our people going and take joy in being Jewish. I am very proud of the people they have turned out to be.

"I hope they find in the Ask Haviv Anything podcast learning and insight into their history as Jewish people, the history of our cousins in Israel and some insight and language to understand the increasing complexity of living in a world that doesn’t seem to understand us and needs us to explain ourselves in a forthright intelligent way. The podcast helps me and I think will help them in the acquisition of these insights and language."

Thank you, Peter, for that dedication.

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

126: Will your kid's best friend be a robot? With Dr. Micah Goodman

Ask Haviv Anything

126: Will your kid's best friend be a robot? With Dr. Micah Goodman