This past summer, a group of prominent haredi rabbis issued a ban on the use of artificial-intelligence chatbots. Jacob J. Schacter sympathizes with the rabbis’ concerns about the dangers of these programs, but disputes the alarmist position (shared by many outside the haredi world) that AI will “transform human life beyond recognition.” He urges instead a more sober approach:

It is how technology is used that matters. History would suggest that rather than resist steel because it can be beaten into swords, we do better to embrace it and make plowshares instead—not least because we as a species have never proven able to choose not to create something that has been in our power to create.

To Schacter a helpful historical precedent is the printing press, to which eminent rabbis likewise responded with alarm:

Despite all this, of course, printing flourished. This was in part because many in the Jewish community recognized how useful it was. Of Gutenberg’s invention of printing, Rabbi David Ganz (1541–1613) wrote in the entry for the year 1440 in his historical Tsemah David that “nothing as valuable as it is found in all the wisdoms and clever devices from the day that God created man on the earth,” and that, “were it not for printing, God forbid, Torah would have been forgotten from Israel.”

Rather than seek to throttle the exposure of the Jewish community to AI, which will surely prove futile outside the haredi community and perhaps ultimately inside it, too, communities need to think hard about how to maximize its advantages and minimize its threats. These are choices.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.