Can I Let My AI Agent Run on Shabbat? | Hacker News Reader

Can I Let My AI Agent Run on Shabbat?

chabad.org

36 pointssome-guy19 comments

Ok, so let's say you are an Orthodox Jew business owner. Can you let your goyim to continue making profit for you on Saturday, or "does that itself take away from the spirit and sanctity of the day" too? I don't see how it's different from the problem at hand.

More seriously, though, thinking about this pretty silly (in my view) question makes me want to talk to some Rabbis to clarify some things. AFAIK, the existence of free will is pretty fundamental to Judaism (unlike Islam or branches of Protestantism), and having pretty materialistic views on the question of free will myself (i.e. it doesn't exist, obviously), I struggle to imagine how the alternative views can survive contemplating if you can let your AI-agent run on Saturdays. I mean, I think I understand how, say, Orthodox Christians can keep these views today, but they don't really have such meticulous legal system built upon purely theological discussions. So, as an Orthodox Christian, even if you fully understand the implications (which, of course, most people don't, but that's besides the point) it isn't really a problem to consciously accept whatever beliefs about free will while still being very materialistic about most practical questions. But since my knowledge of Jewish theology is extremely limited, I have no idea if you even have to have some specific views about determinism for halakha to be self-consistent.

A restaurant here (Seattle) has a "Shabbat lease" where the business is operated and staffed by a separate group for part of the week. I'm not sure on the details, but I think they had to word the contract in a very specific way (and even then I'm sure different authorities would have differing opinions on how acceptable it is). I'm used to it meaning "we close early Friday, don't open Saturday".

How do you insure such a thing from fires or liability? Split insurance contracts 1/6 th 5/6th

For the life of me I can't imagine having any group or organization dictate what I can and cannot do on a given day (within the confines of morality of course). That would feel to me like a severe limitation of my personal freedom. It extends to other religions as well by the way, I feel the same about headscarves for Muslim women or going to church for worship for Christians. The fact that I can get up on any given day, and do whatever I want to is one of the greatest gifts of life.

How do you feel about laws, enforced by the state? There are likely plenty of moral things you aren't free to get up and do on any given day due to the state dictating what you can and cannot do on a given day.

You'll probably find the things you can do do differ a bit on Sundays due to government regulations. Like in London where I am most shops close by 6pm. The keep Sundays special stuff does to some extent come from the Bible but there are reasons to do that which are secular too like letting families have a recreational day together.

The orthodox jews have some wacky mental acrobatics that you might like!

You're not allowed to work on Saturdays, and even turning the lights on counts as work. So if you want to have lights on on Saturday, you turn them on on Friday. If you want to read in bed, you get a lamp that stays on, but where you can slide a shade in front of the lamp, covering the light.

I'm seriously impressed by this.

With respect, the amount of making stuff up to appease one's interpretations of some rules just seems kind of wild to me. Programming an oven to cook the day before or sitting in an elevator and stopping at every floor on the way up feels performative. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions but it just doesn't seem to fit in a modern society.

Sometimes constraints lead to new inventions. Like haikus.

The crockpot was allegedly inspired by sabbath stewing techniques.

That’s a good viewpoint! Interesting about the crockpot as well.

There's legends of rabbis with golems that go both ways. The famous Golem of Prague was turned off for the sabbath. The less famous Golem of Drohitchin was specifically made to do work that Jews would not be allowed to during the sabbath, which resulted in a fire when its instructions weren't clear enough.

>which resulted in a fire when its instructions weren't clear enough.

Hold on they may be on to something. The issue here is that the jewish laws are also liable to cause trouble, but Judaism would ascribe a holiness to them that precludes them from incorrect interpretation, as opposed to man written law/codes.

However, as long as men are doing the interpretation, catastrophe can also arise out of the imperfect interpretation of the finite instructions.

Furthermore what if a Golem were set to follow the holy laws? Would then we be free from all catastrophe risk? Save for the risk of imperfections in the automated holy law following mechanisms of the Golem.

We can only be left with Holy Laws that can only be followed by humans, because it is for humans that these laws were written. And any imperfections in the interpretation and manifestation of the law are only so insofar as the empirical practice reveals them to cause catastrophes, with the surviving jursiprudence being as holy as the law themselves, having survived extintion events and thus proved their fitness for human flourishment.

It would of course depend on the specifics, an AI Agent that's looking for market trades would be different than one related to study or intellectual pursuit.

On the mechanics, of course it's worth clarifying that one should assume that no prompts are given to the agent, and perhaps even that no output is looked at. In that sense this is much less a violation of the Shabbat done an oven on a timer (which needs to be kept under close watch due to fire hazards AND whose fruits one enjoys during Shabbat itself).

I do agree that there doesn't seem to be much new in this conundrum, but in taking that route of analysis, one ends up being complacent and focusing on the easy existing answers instead of asking the harder question "what is different about THIS technology?"

IANAR but I'd say not letting an agent run on a Shabbat would be very strict, if financially productive, it's on par with the strict position on the flour mill, while if it's not financially productive, it's as strict as forbidding Study on Shabbat.

Am I going to have to find a shabbos goy to unblock my swarm? They already don't like when I ask them to turn on my lights.

But the Agent IS the Shabbos Goylem

Sounds like a great opportunity for an OBSERVE-SHABBAT.md agent skill, no?

Oh wow! :O I always remembered this being called "The Sabbath". I had to go look this up. But oh my, wow! We're not starting to talk about AI and Religion in the same breath?!

"Sabbath" is just the anglicized version of the ancestral Hebrew word "Shabbat", meaning rest.