(Canada and US) 60 Minutes Program on Sunday March 27 Artificial Intelligence Ability to Converse With Holocaust Survivors Even After They Die #holocaust
On Sunday, March27, the CBS program 60 Minutes had an episode on “Artificial Intelligence Ability to Converse with Holocaust Survivors Even After they Die”.
See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocaust-stories-artificial-intelligence-60-minutes-2022-03-27/ This may only be available in Canada and the United States.
CBS 60 Minutes broadcaster Leslie Stahl “interviewed” Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster who spent two years of his childhood hidden in a neighbor's attic, was unlike any interview they have ever done. Aaron Elster,
unlike many Holocaust survivors, never spent time in a concentration camp. As Jews were being rounded up in his town's marketplace and sent to Treblinka, his father told him to run. He was 9 years old. "And I managed to crawl into the sewer that ran along the marketplace, the street," Elster's digital image said. "And kept crawling 'til I felt I was outta sight, stood up and started running."Ms. Stahl was interviewing an artificially
intelligent tool “person” who in real life had died four years previously.
To make this possible the Shoah Foundation went through the database of testimonies so that when someone asks a question to the AI “person” the algorithm is looking throughout the database and gives what it thinks is the closest answer to the question that was asked.
Also “interviewed” was Eva Kor who along with her twin sister survived Mengele’s notorious experiments. Ms. Kor died in 2019—the “person” answering the questions was also an AI “person”.
The Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation collected of film and testimonies from 55,000 survivors, which are stored at the University of Southern California (USC).
To access the USC Shoah Foundation Visual Archived Online go to: https://sfi.usc.edu/what-we-do/collections
Other Holocaust museums have some of the survivors testimonies.
The whole point of the Shoah Foundation's project is to allow meaningful conversations with holocaust survivors to continue even after the survivors themselves are gone. And of the more than 50 men and women who've participated so far,
six have passed away already. Stephen Smith is the director. "You know, here you have these people who were basically destined to be annihilated," Stahl said to Stephen Smith. "That they survived is the miracle.
But they were supposed to be murdered, killed. "They were not supposed to have a name," Smith said. "They were supposed to be destroyed for all time. And now, through this program, they will be able to continue to answer questions hundreds of years after the Nazis have gone."
Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
"The Forever Project
The Forever Project has been so successful that we are now developing new online and Virtual Reality versions."
and
~~~
If you visit their site (https://www.holocaust.org.uk/foreverproject1), there are opportunities to contribute to this important project.
Mary Benedict
SW Herts, UK
Jeremy Antrich
Surbiton, England
By the way, one justification I have seen is that the participating survivors were pleased with the results when they were demonstrated to them. But this is not a real justification - the participants were rightly impressed with the technology, but seem to have been unaware of the implications.
Jeremy Antrich
Surbiton, England
Chuck Kreiman
Denver
ROSENBERG
RUSLANDER
BURDICK
MALIN/MALINKOVICH
KREIMAN/KREYMAN/KREJMAN
From Eli Wiesel: When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov
Saw misfortune threatening the Jews
It was his custom
To go into a certain part of the forest to meditate.
There he would light a fire,
Say a special prayer,
And the miracle would be accomplished
And the misfortune averted.
Later when his disciple,
The celebrated Magid of Mezritch,
Has occasion, for the same reason,
To intercede with heaven,
He would go to the same place in the forest
And say: “Master of the Universe, listen!
I do not know how to light the fire,
But I am still able to say the prayer.”
And again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later,
Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov,
In order to save his people once more,
Would go into the forest and say:
“I do not know how to light the fire,
I do not know the prayer,
But I know the place
And this must be sufficient.”
It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn
To overcome misfortune.
Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands,
He spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire
And I do not know the prayer;
I cannot even find the place in the forest.
All I can do is to tell the story,
And this must be sufficient.”
And it was sufficient.
God made man because he loves stories.
JAY HAMBURGER
Houston
My wife is a child survivor, and I've known and still know many survivors. Here is my view of the down side of this new technology: It is possible that this will (in 100 yrs?) be hijacked by deniers, just as Jews have almost lost the Holocaust, and may start to lose the local museums of the holocaust. Holocaust Museums require the support of big donors, and such donors are dying out here. Their heirs donate to green causes, not Jewish causes. The Orthodox community does not support these traditional recipients of funds from secular/cultural Jews. The museum itself is becoming a museum of generic victimization. I once predicted in a real pessimistic moment that in 2 generations the Museum I am most familiar with would be taken over by Moslem donors and turned into a Palestinian museum. Coming back to this new idea; if such virtual contact expands most people will "experience" the holocaust from constructed holograms. How will they be distinguished from such holograms that are completely made up--works of fiction? What will give them the look and feel of authenticity, of not being made to sell a made-up Jewish victimization story? My wife is speaking to groups of children in Jewish schools about her personal experience as a child survivor. They will remember and tell their own children... Please excuse this negativity--I am ready to be dissuaded...
Jules Levin, Los Angeles
This AI program is extraordinary....providing a permanent and continuing link to the hearts, minds and souls of Holocaust survivors who have, or will soon be unavailable for us to be continuing witnesses to perhaps the worst crime against humanity. I have had many experiences with survivors which are now only fading memories, and when I die, they will be gone forever. Who will be there to be witnesses into the future? This tech miracle appears just in the nick of time to save & preserve the neshamot of a very few remaining survivors. It is brilliant and enlightening. Most of us adjust to new paradigms and their attendant methods. Of course, everyone knows the computer-generated message of thanks from a corporation is not a human handshake! To reject it out of hand is to deny both the message and the feelings behind it. Why would anyone reject a formatted connection to dear Holocaust surviving human beings? Very soon, there will be none. Yevtushenko writes in 'Our Mothers Depart', about "a wall of glass has grown up there".
From Eli Wiesel: When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-TovSaw misfortune threatening the Jews
It was his custom
To go into a certain part of the forest to meditate.
There he would light a fire,
Say a special prayer,
And the miracle would be accomplished
And the misfortune averted.Later when his disciple,
The celebrated Magid of Mezritch,
Has occasion, for the same reason,
To intercede with heaven,
He would go to the same place in the forest
And say: “Master of the Universe, listen!
I do not know how to light the fire,
But I am still able to say the prayer.”
And again the miracle would be accomplished.Still later,
Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov,
In order to save his people once more,
Would go into the forest and say:
“I do not know how to light the fire,
I do not know the prayer,
But I know the place
And this must be sufficient.”
It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn
To overcome misfortune.
Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands,
He spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire
And I do not know the prayer;
I cannot even find the place in the forest.
All I can do is to tell the story,
And this must be sufficient.”
And it was sufficient.God made man because he loves stories.
JAY HAMBURGER
Houston