If AI developed to the point that you could ask it a question, and instruct it to answer in the manner of a particular gadol, and it is demonstrably able to do so flawlessly. For example: you have an unpublished teshuva from Hagaon R X, you would ask AI what R X would say on that question, and it would respond precisely as was written in that teshuva.
You might say that this is impossible. A posek has siyata dishmaya לאסוקי שמעתתא אליבא דהילכתא, and that is obviously absent in AI. But for the sake of argument, let's say that you have an advanced AI that will mimic any particular posek. Can you rely on it le'halacha?
If the answer you relied on is later shown to be incorrect, then I think it is self evident that you will not have the safe harbor defense of having acted on the advice of a posek. But let's discuss a case where there is no reason to think that AI erred.
If the reader was himself a talmid chacham, and after reading the teshuva and going through the sugya he is convinced it is correct, then I can not think of any reason why he could not rely on it. (I emphasize that he has to be a talmid chacham of stature, because it's easy to understand a teshuva and to be convinced it is right, and to then read another teshuva saying the opposite and to then be convinced that it is also right.) But what if the person is not capable of that kind of critical evaluation?
I am convinced that the correct approach is the one implied in the introductions to the Ketzos and to the Igros, that such a psak halacha is not called Torah at all. Even after seeing the psak, the rule would be as in any case of a safek- deoraysa lechumra, derabanan lekula, efshar levareir, etc. Anything beyond ביעתא בכותחא would be outside the use of AI, and someone who relied on it would, in the case of a deoraysa, transgress an issur deoraysa because safek lechumra. Torah requires the decision of a human talmid chacham.
Ketzos:
ובמדרש בראשית רבה אמר ר' סימן בשעה שרצה הקב"ה לברוא את האדם נעשו מלאכי השרת כתות כתות מהם אומרים יברא ומהם אומרים כו' שנאמר חסד ואמת נפגשו חסד אומר יברא שכולו מלא חסדים ואמת אומר לא יברא שכולו מלא שקרים כו' מה עשה הקב"ה נטל אמת והשליכה ארצה שנאמר ותשלך אמת ארצה אמרו לפניו רבש"ע אתה מבזה תכשיט שלך אמר הקב"ה רצוני שתעלה אמת מן הארץ. והיינו משום דידוע דשכל האדם ילאה להשיג האמת בהיות בארץ שורשו ולזה אמרו אתה מבזה תכשיט שלך כיון שעיקר הבריאה עבור התורה והאדם בשכלו האנושי מהנמנע להשיג האמת האמיתי וכאשר יתנהגו העולמות כולם מעלמא ועד עלמא ע"פ תורת האדם ולא יהיה ע"פ האמת הרי אתה מבזה תכשיט שלך שחותמך אמת ועל זה השיב הקב"ה זהו רצוני שתעלה אמת מן הארץ והאמת יהיה כפי הסכמת החכמים בשכל האנושי ולשכון כבוד בארצינו וע"ד שאפרש בסמוך האמנתי כי אדבר. וזו היא ברכת התורה אשר נתן לנו תורת אמת שיהיה האמת אתנו וחיי עולם נטע בתוכינו
This is a serious question. Please do not post any jokes about לא בשמים היא and Halacha not being "in the cloud."
ReplyDeleteAnd jokes about publishing a “Chiddushei haGrok”?
Deletesmh
DeleteCan you enlarge on that last paragraph? Doesn't bringing a korban imply some level of guilt?
ReplyDeleteThis is a massive problem. Who would say that someone who relied on a posek mumcheh is guilty of anything? And even so, we pasken like the Chachamim.
DeleteI strongly recommend that you look at the Noda BiYehuda YD MT 96, at
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1447&st=&pgnum=151&hilite=
and tell me what you think he is saying.
Same N'B, but on Sefaria, so it's easier to read.
Deletehttps://www.sefaria.org/Noda_BiYehudah_II%2C_Yoreh_Deah.96?lang=he
I struggled very much with that N'B. The understanding that I ended up with after a conversation with Rav Tzvi Berkowitz shlita a number of years ago (note: this is my understanding, following a conversation; I don't know that he would endorse the following words here), is that the Torah allows, and even mandates, relying on two eidim, but that does not make following the eidim part of the Torah itself. As long as you stick to Toras Hashem, you will not be chayav to bring a korban. But relying on eidim is relying on eidim, not on Toras Hashem directly, and there a korban is required. If you are simply following the direct words of the Torah, there's no korban; if you are following basar vedam, because the Torah said you should, there can still be a chiyuv korbon.
ReplyDeleteSo, its a technical chiluk. Does it explain why a person should be chayav, rather than saying מאי הוה ליה למעבד? I don't really see how it does...
I will note that I later found that the Divrei Chaim discusses this question as well; see DC 2 YD 68 - https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/reader/reader.aspx?sfid=815#p=329&fitMode=fitwidth&hlts=&ocr=
Frankly, after all is said and done, I still come away feeling that the question still remains (on some level, at least). But then what do I know...
It's good to hear, even second hand, something from Reb Tzvi. We were contemporaries in the Yeshiva and Kollel, among a group of the greatest produced by Ner Israel, and even then his logic was rock solid. No speculation, no caprice, no achronim.
DeleteI agree with what you say, though. I remember once walking by a group of people surrounding R Asher Weiss and he was declaiming about the fact that if you rely on a psak you were given by a posek, you are absolutely safe, and any consequence for a mistake rests on the Rov. I said "Not according to the Noda Bi'Yehuda." He gave me a look that expertly combined indifference and disdain and continued without a pause. I assume that he knew what I was referring to. I further assume that he would say, as I said, that it is a din in the korban.
As to the logic- Here's a suggestion that Reb Tzvi would not like, probably with that same R A Weiss look. When a mistake is made, and the mistake is not an oneis, someone has to bring a korban. Really, the posek or the eidim should bring it, but you don't bring a korban for dibbur and grama. So, by default, the guy who did the maaseh brings the korban. But it is a din that a korban needs to be brought, not that he needs a korban.
I think that is a pretty solid tzad, and is probably true. And you know the chelkas mechokek famously holds that a yachid would only be patur if the psak was from the Beis din hagadol… and although it is controversial among achronim, the N”B’s son mostly agrees, other than by Agunah. See R’ Avrohom Ganechovsky’s Cheder Horasi.
DeleteI have been trying very hard to decrease the size of my library, but if the local Kollel doesn't have it, the Cheder Horasi looks like it is going to be the exception.
DeleteBaruch Hashem the Otzar lets you see the first pages, and I found it. I really like how he writes. This link works for me:
Deletehttps://tablet.otzar.org/#/b/681310/p/26/t/1776462342396/fs/1gal3EosYYCidvnpeumKlLmazW3FSMJ21dp0P6NdkEzs/start/178/end/1046/c/1776462353995
and go to page כח.
This may be unnecessary, but I want to point out that when Menachem said that "a yachid would only be patur if the psak was from the Beis din hagadol" even that petur is only according to Rav Yehuda. According to the Rabanan, and we pasken like that, the yachid is not pattur even if he got the psak from the Beis Din HaGadol.
DeleteVery interesting. I was thinking that perhaps, and I stress perhaps, the korbon in these cases are based on the idea of כיון שבאה תקלה על ידו. Ein hachi nami, there is nothing this person could have done - but ultimately, he was the hand that actualized this problematic situation, and it was through him that the dayan's horaah became a maaseh aveirah. To undo that embarassment, he needs a korbon.
ReplyDeleteGood thought, inherently unprovable.
DeleteBut one thing, I think, is clear. Din oneis for guilt and din oneis to patter from a korban are not identical. Guilty? Absolutely not. You did exactly what you were required to do, you can not be guilty of any breach of duty. But to be pattur from a korban, you need a different level of oneis, that it's not even considered, as you say, a takkalah.