Torah: Creating new access with AI

For millions worldwide, the Torah is far more than just a dusty book from a distant past. It gives them strength and guidance, especially in everyday matters. Studying the Torah however is not easy, individual aspects are interpreted in very different ways and, to make things more complex, there are constantly new additions and commentaries on it. Antoine Leboyer, Managing Director at the TUM Venture Lab in Munich, is now building an AI for Torah study to provide better orientation. The technology taps into complex sources and provides thoughtful answers to all sort of questions.

Antoine, how do you come up with the idea of writing an AI for the Torah?

Anyone who has ever dealt with Jewish texts knows that it can be challenging. You can easily find dozens to several hundreds of commentaries for every paragraph, each reflecting different interpretations. It is overwhelming for people with little previous experience to find their way around. My main concern was to provide them with easy access and thus, to get them excited about the Torah. I myself go to religious texts again and again to clarify important everyday questions for myself, for the sheer pleasure of learning, but also to understand how certain rules came about. In spring 2023, I was pursuing a complex question – I wanted to know why the Jewish law requires two witnesses for a valid testimony – and had difficulties finding further documents to really go deeper. At this time, the revolution around Generative AI was getting underway. An idea began to grow in me: an AI as a kind of navigation system for Torah study. An AI that helps you find your way through the multitude of texts. A short time later, I had the opportunity to talk to Sam Altman about my ideas during his world tour. He was very positive and it spurred me on even more.

That sounds like a very personal project.

It's a real project of the heart! And I may add that it also runs in the family. If you go back about 300 years on my family tree, you come across the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His influence at the time of the Enlightenment was fundamental. He advocated that citizenship should be granted to all people regardless of their religion – especially Jewish people. As we know, this was not a given at the time. He also translated the Torah in German to make it more accessible to everyone. Of course, I don't want to claim that my work is as important as his, but I perhaps hold a similar position towards religion, believing that religious knowledge must be accessible to all people and that innovation can help.

How is this reflected in the AI?

Users can chat with the AI and ask their questions about the Torah, similar to ChatGPT. However, there are some key differences. We don't give one single answer to every question, but show different perspectives, from strictly orthodox to progressive. Each position is accompanied by references so that, after an initial orientation, people can delve deeper into the texts. Next to that, we also managed to create a very reliable AI by using the latest technologies. One of them is known as RAG – Retrieval augmented generation: It allows to pre-select the most relevant documents before analyzing them. In this way, we can significantly reduce the classic risk of hallucination where an AI gives an erroneous answer with seemingly great authority.

Won't this make rabbis superfluous in the future?

This is a question we are asked by many in the Jewish world. The short answer is no, AI cannot replace people and does not substitute the support that you can find in communities. But it can facilitate learning about our texts and ultimately help people feel comfortable in a synagogue.

Where are you currently in the development process?

We are still in the pilot phase with around 250 people from all over the world. At the beginning, I didn’t expect that this could turn into a really great group. The test subjects include everyone from interested beginners to high-end researchers. They can all look at each other's questions. Some are very active and use it almost daily, others are more inspired by the thoughts of others. These include many very real-life questions. For example, someone asked what the Torah recommends when working in an intercultural team. How do you deal with differences and how can you treat each other with respect? I'm very happy about that, because that's exactly what religion is supposed to do – show new ways in everyday life. Our next step is then to publish the application on the website of Sefaria, one of our project partners from Israel with a reach of over one million people. If you are interested now to join the pilot, please reach out to me.

Who is involved in the project?

We are a total of five people who are driving the project forward in their free time. And if I may add at this point: this ongoing commitment to the project – which is done out of pure generosity – is particularly touching today. I currently find that anti-Semitic attitudes have suddenly become socially acceptable again in so many places worldwide. And we are all busy entrepreneurs... But back to the team: at the beginning, contact with the Jewish community was important to me. I quickly contacted Sefaria – a great organization that makes Jewish texts available to everyone free of charge in a large online library. For the technical aspects, we got fabulous support from the Munich-based appliedAI Institute, which is also part of the UnternehmerTUM and Dieter Schwarz Foundation.

You will also be a guest at 42 in January. What are you particularly looking forward to?

I have visited 42 and found that there is a wonderful dynamic there, a great openness to different ways of thinking and people are learning to develop new solutions. I hope that everyone who learns about AI there will also consider being an entrepreneur. I look forward to talking to them about it, and especially about how to interact with Venture Capitalists. So it would be great to see many people there!