Steven Gotlib & Eli Rubin: What Does It Mean To Be Human? [AI 1/3]

Update: 2025-10-28

Description

This series is sponsored by American Security Foundation.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast—recorded at the 18Forty X ASFoundation AI Summit—we speak with Rabbi Eli Rubin and Rabbi Steven Gotlib about what differentiates human intelligence from artificial intelligence.

In this episode we discuss:

What does AI teach us about what it means to be human?
What is the soul, and how do we interact with it?
Should we be frightened or encouraged by the development of AI?

Tune in to hear a conversation about the role of language in our humanity.

Interview begins at 16:49 .

Steven Gotlib is Associate Rabbi at Mekor Habracha/Center City Synagogue and Director of the Center City Beit Midrash in Philadelphia. Steven received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, certificates in Mental Health Counseling and Spiritual Entrepreneurship, and a BA in Communication and Jewish Studies from Rutgers University.

Eli Rubin, a contributing editor at Chabad.org, is the author of Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism and a co-author of Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Transformative Paradigm for the World. He studied Chassidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America and at yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia, and received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.

References:

“Basketball: The One And Only”

Genesis 7;23

Rashi on Genesis 7:23

“Remembering my chavruta: Rabbi Moshe Hauer, z”l” By Rabbi Rick Jacobs

“18Forty: Exploring Big Questions (An Introduction)”

18Forty Podcast: “The Cost of Jewish Education”

18Forty Podcast: “Steven Gotlib: Some Rabbi Grapples with His Faith”

18Forty Podcast: “Eli Rubin: How Do Mysticism and Social Action Intersect”

18Forty Podcast: “Eli Rubin: Is the Rebbe the Messiah?”

Torah Ohr by Shneur Zalman of Liadi

Tanya by Shneur Zalman of Liadi

Nefesh HaChayim by Chaim of Volozhin

Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides

Halakhic Man by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

The Conscious Mind by David J. Chalmers“

Adam, The Speaking Creature: On Humanity and Language in the Era of AI” by Eli Rubin

“Toward a Jewish Theology of Consciousness” by Steven Gotlib

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes by Anthony Gottlieb

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