Alexa and Adonai

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, digital assistants like Alexa and Siri may soon be able to add psychotherapy to the benefits they offer. Thing is, though, that no matter how sophisticated the algorithm becomes, your digital assistant will never replace what God can do for you. 

 

It’s an idea straight out of the 1960s science fiction TV series playbook — a smart computer that answers every question and can get you out of nearly any alien-induced pickle. Whether it was the bridge of the starship Enterprise or the robot on Lost in Space, artificial intelligence was a dream that made everyone’s life a little easier and machines a little less, well, “machine-y.”

There were warning signs, of course, like the cautionary tale of HAL 9000 (HAL is an acronym for Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic) in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the computer goes nuts and tries to kill off all the humans aboard a space ship.

Fast forward a few decades, and we’ve now invited that dreamy, futuristic technology into our homes in the form of digital assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. Like Captain Kirk on the bridge, you can simply ask a question or request information and the answer comes back to you instantly in a ...