Lakewood Yeshiva Leaders Hold Emergency Meeting on AI Risks
Critics cast the gathering as an effort to preserve rabbinic authority over access to knowledge.
Overview
- About thirty senior roshei yeshiva and rabbonim met in Lakewood, New Jersey, at Ateres Chana Hall to address what they called growing spiritual dangers from artificial intelligence.
- Speakers warned that AI can quietly reshape thinking, weaken discipline, and compromise the kedusha and integrity expected in yeshiva learning.
- Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel described AI as an “Eitz Hadaas Tov V’Ra,” stressing its mix of beneficial and harmful potential as especially challenging.
- Participants urged proactive institutional rules for yeshivos to set boundaries on AI use, though no unified policy or ban was announced.
- A widely shared commentary criticized the meeting’s premise as rooted in fears of losing authority and argued for more open engagement with AI’s benefits.