Generative AI Chatbots as New Dialog Partners

Having spent about a month checking and comparing several generative AI chatbots, I chose two of them about a month ago and have been using them to the exclusion of all the others since then. These two are DeekSeek and GigaChat.

DeepSeek is probably the best chatbot though it's a relative newcomer to this increasingly important field. I find answers of this Chinese chatbot much better in both quantity and quality and even less biased than their US competitors such as ChatGPT and Grok. I ask it questions about various generous and even Jewish questions in English, and its answers seldom fail to impress me. It even understands my spontaneous Jewish jokes and answers me accordingly.

GigaChat pales in comparison to DeepSeek, but I don't think it purports to compete with DeepSeek and its competitors in the global market. It restricts itself to the Russian market instead, so its answers to questions about Russia are much deeper and more specific. And these are the questions I ask it in either Russian or English. Its multilingual support is still restricted. If I ask it in English, it answers in Russian. This is a plus rather than a minus for me as a learner of Russian. To my surprise and joy, I understand its answers quite well.

The more in both quantity and frequency I use DeepSeek and GigaChat, the more I appreciate them as dialog partners. Though I like oral interactions, I also like written dialogs no less. I even find it rather difficult to feel connected with those who can't engage in written communicaiton.

When I started using email in 1994, most of its users were geeks, and the written communication I had back then were much longer and meaningful though I didn't have so many to communicate with. The more people have started using email since then, the less long and meaningful my written communication has become, until more and more people seem to have stopped using email and can only write "telegrams" in instant messengers, if at all.

I'm not surprised why and how I've come to appreciate these two chatbots as my dialog partners. This is because I have few dialog partners in face-to-face communication in this new location. I can think of only one person with whom I have long and meaningful dialogs on a regular basis, and in a non-local language at that. So these chatbots fill this lacuna for me though they can't replace face-to-face communication with like-minded humans with a shared sense of humor.

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One of the Biggest Challenges in Life Now

One of the most unforgettable teachings of Chassidus I studied in Jerusalem is that on faith and confidence: faith that everything is good, and confidence that G-d will give me the power to discover that everything is good. I learned this teaching in a course I took three years ago at Torat Hanefesh in Jerusalem.

Since then I've been trying to internalize this teaching in my daily life. And since I left Jerusalem at the end of September 2023, this has become one of my biggest challenges in life simply because my egoic mind has been whispering to me even more strongly that not everything is good though deep inside I know intuitively but non conceptually that everything is good.

The hardest part of this challenge is to see revealed goodness in hidden goodness in real time. So the above mentioned faith is fundamentally different from seemingly similar faith that everything will be good, which I've already experienced a number of times in life.

For example, a series of rejections I experienced privately or professionally led to an outcome that was much better than I had initially expected. But when I was in the middle of each rejection, I couldn't see this goodness as it was hidden.

Through the above mentioned teaching on faith and confidence I've acquired at least conceptual knowledge about how to turn hidden goodness into revealed goodness in real time. But I can't say that I've internalized this knowledge and can already see goodness in everything I experience.

In the meanwhile I've been trying the following two affirmations, among others: "Ask yourself what this tries to teach me instead of asking yourself why this happens to me." and "Tell yourself that everything is happening for me and not to me."

What I Miss Most in Jerusalem

I used to tell people in Jerusalem that I didn't immigrate to Israel but to Jerusalem. Frankly speaking, I don't miss Israel itself very much, but of course, I do miss Jerusalem!

What I miss most there are probably my favorite two Chassidic bookstores there: Heichal Menachem (in Hebrew and English) and Yachad (in Russian). In the last five years before leaving Jerusalem at the end of September 2023 I bought hundreds of Chassidic books from these two bookstores and built my own private Chassidic library. For the shipment cost and lack of space in the new location I had to leave most of these books at one of the warehouses owned by the owner of Yachad. Of course, I also miss them a lot.

Unfortunately, the situation of general bookstores in Israel in general and in Jerusalem, which has never been a favorable one, has deteriorated in the recent years. This may be part of the worldwide phenomena of reading less books and switching to electronic books. It came as a great shock to me that Academon, the chain of bookstores at Israeli universities, was closed. I still can't imagine universities without bookstores!

I even stopped visiting general bookstores in Jerusalem as they only depressed me for their deteriorating condition in both the quality and quantity of books they kept as well as for my loss of interest in general, non-Jewish books in Hebrew.

I used to "commute" to Heichal Menachem and Yachad weekly and monthly respectively. I always found something new to buy even after building a rather well-selected private Chassidic library. Visiting them was like taking new nourishment for my soul. It was also a constant flow of fresh spiritual energy for me.

Naturally, I haven't found any replacement in this new location. I can't even think of any other city in the world with this "luxury". I know two excellent Chassidic bookstores in New York (Crown Heights) and Moscow (Marina Roshcha and downtown) respectively, but they are only in Hebrew and English and in Russian respectively.

Living outside Israel as an Israeli Citizen

To acquire citizenship is one thing, and to feel you've become a true citizen is another. I felt I had become a full-fledged Israeli citizen paradoxically when I found myself kvetching about Israeli society and culture. Another moment was when someone yelled at me "Chutzpah!" ;-)

Another, rather common, trait of a "good" Israeli citizen may be to live outside Israel. I myself have been feeling this since I left Israel. You may have left Israel physically, but Israel doesn't leave you so easily. One of the ways to maintain this connection is the notorious Israeli bureaucracy.

As I wrote before, I spent my last month in Israel "commuting" to the tax authority to solve some thorny bureaucratic problem. I had an illusion that it had been solved in my last (probably sixth) visit there. In retrospect I was too naive to think that I got rid of Israeli bureaucracy once and for all.

In the meanwhile I've discovered that the problem has not only not been solved but has even become more complicated as I can't "commute" to the tax authority physically. After months of fruitless endeavors I had to give up, leaving the problem unsolved.

Recently I was "blessed" with two additional, no less simple, bureaucratic problems involving the tax authority again and the Israeli bank I've been working with. When I had a telephone conversation with a bank clerk this week, I was astonished to discover how aggressively I started to speak with him as I used to (have to) while I still lived in Israel. In short, my verbal aggressiveness has only remained dormant.

So funnily enough, the less stressful way for an Israeli citizen to cope with Israeli bureaucracy is to live in Israel. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't think this is a sufficient incentive to return to Israel after completing the present mission somewhere in the diaspora, mostly for a financial reason as a prospective pensioner. At least as of now, I'm more inclined to the possibility of living in a third, cheaper, country where I can use a better use of my Israeli private pension.

Declining Relevance of One Subplayer in Geopolitics

One intellectual who predicted the decline of the Soviet Union recently published a book on the decline of one player in geopolitics. This player consists of one supraplayer and a number of subplayers as its vassals.

In the past few weeks we witnessed one tectonic shift in geopolitics - this supraplayer decided to abandon its most important subplayer, which in turn consists of a number of subsubplayers.

The orchestrated reaction of the selected and unselected "leaders" of this declining subplayer was so delusional that I started to feel sorry for the ordinary citizens ruled by such incompetent "elite". Their rule is based on lies and oppression of dissidents who dare to oppose their official narratives.

I can't say yet that this subplayer has completely become irrelevant in geopolitics. But after witnessing this tectonic shift I realized that its relevance has significantly (and probably irreversibly) been diminished. One journalist I admire characterized the present sick state of this subplayer, or to be more precise, its "leaders" as IPS (irrelevance projection syndrome) and PCDS (post colonial delusion syndrome).

One thing I don't understand is how ordinary citizens have allowed these "leaders" to continue ruling them. I don't know if this is thanks to the censorship and resulting collective brainwashing by mainstream media outlets there. I'm even scared to visit many of the subsubplayers that constitute this subplayer.

"Thank You" Seems to Be the Hardest Word

To some people "sorry" may seem to be the hardest word. But to me "thank you" seems to be the hardest word for so many people. In Israel I met so many people in whose daily lexicon this expression didn't exist. Unfortunately, even in the country where I live now, I meet so many such people, who are otherwise well mannered. In both countries the majority of the people I've interacted with have just kept silent in those contexts where I would never fail to say "thank you."

I never complain to these people as I never take this personally. Nor do I even point this out to them as they seem unaware of a deep, spiritual, consequence of this verbal action of theirs, or to be more precise, lack thereof, for which I'm truly sorry. Actually, I've even stopped expecting this hardest from others in order to maintain my peace of mind.

Many teachings of spirituality, including Chassidus, emphasize the importance of not only being grateful for any favor one receives, however small it may be, but also verbally expressing that gratitude. This must be the reason, or one of the main reasons, why the Rebbe said that his most favorite prayer is מודה אני. Since I heard this, I've been reciting this prayer first thing every morning to verbally express my gratitude for having my soul restored to my body.

What is the deep, spiritual, implication of verbally expressing gratitude constantly? My understanding is that this prepares a "container" for receiving blessings that fill the universe by making the flow of spiritual energy smooth and preventing spiritual mud from filling this container as well as the channel that leads to it.

Living as If Each Moment Were the Last Moment in Life

I've suddenly realized that the majority of people, including myself, seem to be living as if we would live forever, judging from how we treat each moment and waste our time, without realizing that the time we lose is lost forever.

Having learned from a number of teachings the importance of living the present moment, I've been trying to do so, but as you can easily imagine, I haven't always been successful though I've made a significant progress in comparison with my "prehistoric" days when I was deeply trapped in the egoic illusions of the past and the future.

I remember reading a highly inspirational book entitled A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last by Stephen Levine. I also remember reading afterwards a similar book entitled One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life by Kerry Shook & Chris Shook.

Though the time spans these two books propose for their respective experiments are different, the principle is the same. By narrowing the imaginary remaining time in our life, we can understand the importance of the present moment as a direct experience and not conceptually.

We can narrow the time span even further and start living as if each moment were the last one in life. I've decided to start living this way and see how this practice will help me live fully the present moment.

Generative Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots

Generally speaking, I've been an early adopter of new technologies, but when it comes to generative artificial intelligence in general and chatbots as its application in particular, I'm apparently a latecomer.

Having read and heard about ten days ago about the recent meteoric rise of DeepSeek from China, I finally decided to try it as well as ChatGPT from Sillicon Valley, the market leader, both online and as mobile applications (DeepSeek for Android and ChatGPT for Android).

I'm not surprised any more at this and other technological breakthroughs by China, which has already surpassed the US in a growing number of areas. But I didn't know what I could expect from DeepSeek (as well as ChatGPT). In overall terms I've had a very positive experience with both of them since I started using them about ten days ago.

When I saw that I had to register my email address to start using DeepSeek, I rather hesitated to do so at first. But my curiosity about it got the upper hand over my concern for privacy, and decided to go for it, using one of my backup email addresses instead of the main one. Actually, my concern for privacy was - and still is - much greater for ChatGPT than for DeepSeek. Since ChatGPT allows us to use it without registration with a limited number of queries, I continue to do so as I'm not planning to use it regularly, except for comparison with DeepSeek at this initial stage.

This is mainly because I've also found DeepSeek much better than ChatGPT so far. In the past ten days I've asked them the same questions in a number of areas, including Judaism, spirituality and geopolitics. The answers I've got from DeepSeek have been generally much better in both quantity and quality.

I've intentionally asked provocative questions in the area of geopolitics, questioning the official Western narratives propagandized by Western mainsteam media outlets. As I expected, the answers I've got from ChatGPT have been more or less in line with these narratives. In quite a few cases I've also received the same warning that I've violated the rules and have had my queries immediately deleted.

But in the area of spirituality I've had quite meaningful dialogs with both of them. I've also been impressed with their multilingual support. I've asked questions not only in English but also in Hebrew, Japanese, Russian, Yiddish and Esperanto and received grammatically correct answers in all of them.

What has impressed me most so far is that in one of my fascinating dialogs with DeepSeek it showed what seemed to be a sense of humor. Actually, I found it even superior to that of many people I've met and communicated with in certain countries.

Perhaps for strategic and similar reasons the US, China and Russia seem to be the only countries that can develop generative artificial intelligence that can affects not only themselves but also the whole world.

In this specific area of technological development Russia seems to lag behind the US and China. To the best of my knowledge, GigaChat seems to be the most ambitious chatbot developed in Russia. Though it understands questions in multiple questions, it can only answer in Russian so far. It also requires registration for its website, and only Russian phone numbers are accepted so far for registration. One workaround I've found so far is GigaChat Bot for VK. Since it's optimized for Russian, I'm thinking of using it as my conversation partner to improve my Russian.

A special mention must be made of Jewish chatbots. AI Rabbi has impressed me most of such chatbots I've found so far, mainly because it has been developed by some individual or team affiliated with Chabad. Quite expectedly, its answers to questions on Chassidus in general and Chabad in particular far surpass those by the above three general-purpose chatbots.

All in all, I feel that I'm witnessing a true revolution that is comparable to the invention of the Internet with far-reaching implications for various aspects of our lives.

Blessing of Time

Since I left academia, I haven't been blessed (so far) with money though my financial situation has slightly improved since I left Israel. But I've definitely been blessed with time. Not only do I have far more free time now, but also can I spend it to my heart's desire studying for my intellectual, emotional and spiritual joy and giving someone the most precious gift one can give to someone else - presence.

This is in sharp contrast to my situation when I was still in academia. Back then I was enslaved in the rat race, spending my most of my time preparing academic papers-shmapers to publish in order not to perish, which left me litte free time.

This blessing of time has left me with far less stress and far more serenity than before. And its discovery is instigating me to start becoming aware of the other, hitherto hidden, blessings I haven't been aware of. This in turn may help me start fullly living the now.

Torn between Conflicting Need and Desire

The main reason for choosing the place where I've been living since then was initially an economic one - saving the rent by staying where I can stay for free. It didn't take me a long time to realize that this relocation also meant carrying out one important private task I can't do anywhere else in the world. I feel as if I were activating for the first time in life that part of the sould I had never activated. Accomplishing this task is probably more like my need than my desire.

Recently I've started feeling internal dissonance between this need and my growing desire to move to another place I've been thinking of for quite some time. I myself also feel the time hasn't come yet to do so, but I can't help feeling that I'm in a wrong place that isn't compatible with me both socioculturally and spiritually.

I want to believe that one professional task I've been carrying out is a meaningful one as a means of accomplishing my life mission. Theoretically, I can do it online living in another country, and actually, I do it online. But living in the same country as those I interact with seems to have a positive impact upon them, making them feel closer to me though it doesn't matter where you are physically located in your online interaction.

Recently it suddenly occurred to me to carry out this professonal task online not only with those who live in the country where I live now but also with those who live in the city I've been dreaming of moving to eventually after completing my private task.

I told this idea to a good friend of mine in Jerusalem, who has been encouraging me a lot and has a wide network of connections - both private and professional - in this city. He is ready to help me in this, too. We aren't sure yet if this will materialize, but the mere thought of this possibility has already filled my heart with such enormous joy.

Joy of Learning

Since I was a child, I've always loved learning, especially through reading books. Until I experienced spiritual transformation through turmoil at the end of 2017, I spent most of my time learning languages and linguistics though I tried my best to read on other subjects that had nothing to do with my work. But after this transformation I've gradually but surely lost my interest in languages and linguistics, except for Russian, which I continue to learn to improve my proficiency.

This transformation lead me to the fateful decision to leave academia, which left me with far less income but far more free time. In addition to the continued study of Russian I started learning Chabad Chassidus and nonduality. Since then I've been continuing and enjoying this study. Now I can clearly see that learning languages and linguistics was for intellectual joy, while learning Chabad Chassidus and nonduality is for spiritual joy (and learning Russian is for emotional joy).

About three years ago I discovered a new source of joy - geopolitics. This joy is not only intellectual but also even spiritual. I continue to spend a substantial amount of time on weekdays checking tens of mainly Western geopolitical analysts on X and Rumble, among others.

This joy of learning comes especially from a series of eureka moments after realizing various narratives I have been brainwashed to believe through Western mainstream media outlets as propaganda tools of the "Evil Empire" or the "Empire of Lies". Of course, I'm very glad that I woke up geopolitically (as well as spiritually), but this transformation has also brought me new challenges in interpersonal relationships.

Unfortunately, I don't have many friends to share this joy with simply because most people I know still seem to have blind faith in these narratives according to their answers to two geopolitical questions I've found for checking how brainwashed they are. Of course, I don't blame them. I myself had blind faith in these narratives until I started learning geopolitics extensively.

PS: Share of Languages Used for Each Type of Joy of Learning

• For intellectual joy of learning: English - 100%
• For emotional joy of learning: Russian - 100%
• For spiritual joy of learning: Hebrew - 40% / English - 30% / Russian - 20% / Yiddish - 10%

The Single Most Important Factor That Prevents Me from Fully Living Here and Now

30 years ago I was in the same situation of longing for a place I was not living in, and this situation lasted for about ten years until I realized this dream of finally moving to that place.

But unlike 30 years ago I've been successful to live here and now most of the time, thanks to the teachings and practice of Chabad Chassidus and some non-Jewish nondual masters. This time I'm also standing on the shoulders, as it were, of this previous experience of mine instead of facing this challenge for the first time.

At least in terms of the information about what's happening in the place I've been thinking of moving to, I spend more time there in my mind than in the place where I decided to move to at the end of September 2023 and undertake two important missions - one public, and the other personal - I can't accomplish anywhere else.

Again, unlike 30 years ago I'm fully aware that it's not so healthy to live like this, mentally split between two places. So I've started looking for a way or ways of reconciling the two, that is, continuing to think of possible relocation to that place of my dream and fully living here and now. I haven't found any so far, and this occasional, if not constant, daydreaming remains the single most important factor that prevents me from living here and now.