A new chatbot has been launched in America which aims to give users a virtual guide to the world’s biggest library of historic Jewish texts.
Unlike existing AI assistants such as ChatGPT, the tool will not only answer questions and provide translations but also encourage users to explore subjects more deeply.
The new chatbot has been developed by California-based digital library Sefaria, which has gathered a collection of nearly 390 million words spanning the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Talmud, Kabbalah texts and much more.
Sara Wolkenfeld, Sefaria’s chief learning officer said the new tool, called Library Assistant, should be considered a “companion” that reflects Jewish values and traditions.
She told the Jewish News of Northern California: “I think the idea that you just ask your question, you get an answer and you walk away – and that’s the whole experience – is antithetical to the way that Sefaria operates.
“We’re all about inviting people into a study experience.”
Sefaria was founded in 2011 by author Joshua Foer and Brett Lockspeiser, a product developer at Google, and now has 800,000 visitors to its site every month.
Wolkenfeld, who lectures about Jewish ethics and tech developments at synagogues, colleges, and conferences added: “We hope that if you have one question, it will lead you to information that then makes you want to ask another question, and you’ll get multiple answers to that question.”
Library Assistant was launched after months of testing by Sefaria’s team, then by friends and family and finally by the platform’s registered users.
Wolkenfeld said: “That testing has been extremely helpful to us in terms of seeing both where it needed work and also getting a sense of how people were using it and who it was helping.”
Sefaria’s chatbot is part of a growing wave of new AI tools that open up Jewish learning, including a bot that lets you “chat” with nine historical Jewish figures including Baruch Spinoza, Emma Goldman and Sigmund Freud.
Wolkenfeld stressed Sefaria’s chatbot was not a virtual chevruta, or study partner, but a guide through 3,000 years of Jewish texts.
She added: “It’s not designed to be a Jewish legal authority. It’s not designed to be your rabbi even, in the sense of being your pastoral presence. It’s really designed to help you navigate the text.”
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