Lior Cole Is the Model Combining Artificial Intelligence With Religion

Cole explains that the Robo Rabbi taps into the boundlessness of AI. Thanks to the GPT-3 AI technology—a natural language processor—the parsha lessons and challenges come from the AI technology itself, allowing Cole to view herself as simply, “the messenger.” “Rarely does AI touch spirituality and religion,” says Cole. “I am doing other projects that touch into the sentient dimensions, but there has yet to be a computer that is entirely human, that is sentient, or has human abilities.” According to Cole, a computer having its own point of view isn’t unheard of. “There are computers who can mimic human-like capabilities,” Cole says. “The technology has a perspective and is articulating that perspective of knowledge on the internet, so it isn’t unique.” Those opinions can be channeled into a medium like Robo Rabbi, which is meant as an enlightening teaching mechanism.

Cole’s other projects include a children’s book about computer science. “I was looking at a children’s book for computer science, and it is math and coding centric. I am such a computer nerd, but I don’t like coding,” she says. “Kids should be exposed to the more human side [of computers.]” She is also creating a coffee table book to train an AI algorithm to program its own art, and is involved in a fashion collective at Cornell, where she is developing a digital model that will be available on the NFT marketplace. Her other AI-minded project? Well, that she signed an NDA for.

As for modeling, Cole wants to pursue it as long as possible and considers it another curious path for her to explore. “When I was younger, I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I want to be a computer scientist when I’m older. I figured that out when I was in college,” she says. “And now that I got scouted, I’m like, ‘This is cool, too!’”