TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Building Bridges: A Conversation with a Tech Innovator and Spiritual Seeker
Date: 09/26/25 Length: 00:46:05
Daniel Lapin 0:00
So good day and greetings all Happy warriors, and thank you for being part of this section of the show. Every now and then, something I really enjoy doing is meeting a happy warrior. And so from time to time, I reach out, or sometimes happy warriors reach out to me, and they make themselves available for a conversation and a Get to know your session. And so today now I want to welcome Renat Buga, who is really a very, very interesting person. And if you're a happy warrior, you are going to hear more about some of his work in the next couple of weeks, because he is putting the finishing touches to something that'll be available to members of our happy warrior community that I don't think I'm not aware of it happening anywhere else. I'll just give you a clue and tell you that it has to do with artificial intelligence, or what we, in the know, call large language model technology, is that right? Renat, that's right.
Renat Buga 1:12
It has different names. AI, GPT, for more techies use the name. It just pronounced. Thank you, Rabbi Daniel, for such a wonderful introduction. Happy to be a guest a privilege at your podcast.
Daniel Lapin 1:29
Okay, well, you know, I I never say a typical Happy Warrior, because there is no such thing. Each Happy Warrior is stunningly, brilliantly and beautifully unique and different. You're, you know, I don't think you can say very unique, because unique is like pregnant you either are or you're not, well, you're unique. And so we're going to start off by getting to know just a little bit about your background. Where does Renat story begin? Right? Well, it begins in Moldova. This is where I was born to family of Moldovan, my father and my mother of Bulgarian descent, so coming from a mixed blood Bulgarian Moldovan being born there, lived there a good part of my life, and then went into growing
Renat Buga 2:22
spiritually and materially in most more western world. And this is where I landed, past three years in Germany. This is where I live now.
Daniel Lapin 2:32
Where did you go to school and what did you study? Well, I went to a
Renat Buga 2:39
general it's called school. But then back in my town from the Southern, southeastern part of Moldova, after that, I moved to the capital kitchen now, where I studied international economic relations. And on my last year of study, I went into entrepreneurship, and this is where things about internet, at least. And Moldova, they became, I don't know, they started to grow so there was still limited availability of Internet, and you had to stay in the line to wait for your turn in special classes equipped with computers connected to internet. So I was very excited about technology. And then in my last year of studies, I started my first venture, which was a Web Design Studio, knowing little about how to build websites, but venture it into this and run it for five years while still in Moldova, before moving to Lithuania
Daniel Lapin 3:35
and now. So how old were you when you moved to Lithuania? That was approximately
Renat Buga 3:42
29 around 29 Yes, and were you married already? No, I stayed there almost a decade, and like around nine years later, I met my wife, a Lithuanian, and there I married her, that was back six years ago. And how did you meet? We meet as many people of my age do these days. It is an was on online website dedicated to serious people, signing up there for serious intentions. So I was there for quite a few years my wife to be joined just a couple of weeks before we met, and then soon after we met, she deleted her profile and continued the relationship just with
Daniel Lapin 4:29
me. So you spotted her, is that what happened? And you reached out to her on the website?
Renat Buga 4:34
Yes, I did, and that's the right thing to do, as you teach us, Ben should be the one taking the lead. Of course, she was popular, and I was getting lots of requests, but I tried to, yeah, to be more persistent, to get that date, though, we decided to not call them dates, but I called courtship
Daniel Lapin 4:54
Excellent. So by that time, you were already a diligent. And happy warrior,
Renat Buga 5:01
exactly, I've been following you for a couple of years before that, and that changed substantially my perspective on relationships between men and women, and not only, generally, all relationships related to 4f of flight back then, they were fourth. Yes, yes. Later was the fifth introduced, you're exactly right. So, and I was listening actively, your podcasts, all your audio courses, a few books. So yeah, and then that changed my perspective on how to build relationships, and generally went into more digging into Jewish wisdom about as particularly about men and women relationships, because this is where I wanted to succeed to finally establish my family. So that helped tremendously. And I think that probably stays at the foundation of our relationship. And I'm happy the way we started and the way we continue. So a lot thanks to the knowledge that we took from you,
Daniel Lapin 6:05
Susan, come in. I wanted to have you have say a chance. Hello, hi.
Renat Buga 6:12
Mrs Susan. Happy to see you again.
Susan Lapin 6:15
Yes, same here. I'm so eager to hear what. Well, I know you're gonna do an you're gonna do an you're doing an interview. We are in the middle of an interview. Yeah, you're Oh, hello everybody. All right, thank you, finally. All right, great. All right. Nice to see everything went well.
Daniel Lapin 6:34
So as so you meet, and you're obviously very like minded. You both are serious. You're not dating, you're courting, and obviously there are shared values.
Renat Buga 6:47
Yes, though my wife wasn't into Judaism, but she was in a transitional spiritual journey of her life, seeking a source of truth. And when we met first time, and we discussed serious stuff, because that's what I how I wanted to be, and then offered her that during our courtship, we meet just with the sole purpose, to see if we are fit as a husband and wife. So I told her about my interest and Judaism, about all the wisdom that I have been learning all these years, in particular about men and women, relationships, about marriage, about parenting. And she was very much interested in this. She was learning, I mean, getting her knowledge from a different source, but she saw a lot of much in the values. And then she liked it. She easily adopted it. And well, this is how we choose. Soon after that, we choose to dig more into this. She more and more started to like the Jewish wisdom, in particular when it comes to family life. Yeah, right, yes. And there you go. Our wedding was officiated by a rabbi, so really, yes, by an orthodox rabbi in the city of Vilna. No, we married in a town. It's in the middle of the country, annex G, it's called, but yeah, we came all the way from Jerusalem to officiate our wedding.
Daniel Lapin 8:20
That is beautiful is, I wonder if I know who I know the I wonder if I know Him,
Renat Buga 8:24
Rabbi Haim Golder from nor heights, wall center from Jerusalem.
Daniel Lapin 8:31
Never, never met him. But that's absolutely, that's beautiful. So he came to Lithuania for the for you invaders, wedding,
Renat Buga 8:38
yes, well, he was delivering a course, but he combined the day of that course with our wedding, so we were planning in advance.
Daniel Lapin 8:49
I'm jealous of him, Renat.
Daniel Lapin 8:52
to have a role in the beginning of such a beautiful family, which is you have now a beautiful little two year old girl, exactly. And you are expecting, as we say, in Hebrew, Basha Tova at a good hour, at a special, blessed hour, you'll, you'll be having another child, adding to your family soon. Was Vedas parents living in Lithuania at the time, yeah, and they still live there in this area. And what was meeting them like for the first time?
Renat Buga 9:23
Well, it was wonderful. But the thing is that I set mine my mindset, that I am meeting my very lucky low code, my future parents. So as Jewish wisdom teaches, is that love is a choice, so you set your mind to love so and love, not in terms of, like, romantic love, but love in terms like, respect and accept people the way they are and all these things, like, you choose to love your family members, right, even if you don't go along with them. So it wasn't the case
Daniel Lapin 9:54
you you've been a wonderful disciple. I love hearing these truths. Come back through your mouth.
Renat Buga 10:01
I'm glad so that was my intention. When I went married. I'd say that's my family. I set my mind to love them and to do everything possible to establish and strengthen that relationship as my family members.
Daniel Lapin 10:16
So you got married in Lithuania, and by this time, you'd been living there for was it about six years?
Renat Buga 10:23
No, we left. We lived there a couple of years, and then we decided to move to Western Europe. We were planning, even before we married, to try the life in Western Europe, and we're considering a few countries. And we landed in Germany, where I found a job, and your job is in tech, yeah, in tech, I work as an IT product manager. That's great.
Daniel Lapin 10:47
And moving from Lithuania to Germany, and are you in Berlin, in the big city? No, we
Renat Buga 10:53
are in the south part of the country, not far from Heidelberg, two hours away, North Bavaria area. No, that's Baden Wurttemberg. That's in the western South.
Daniel Lapin 11:07
And was it easy to move because of European Union structures?
Renat Buga 11:12
Yeah, in terms of getting residency, that's pretty easy. Work Permit, not needed. Just get a job. All easy question from cultural perspective, whether it was a research or not, I think it's was and still pretty easy. Germans are pretty accustomed to foreigners. There are lots of them, lots of immigrants here, of different cultures. They are very acceptable. And it's been already more than three years, and we feel pretty comfortable welcomed here. I feel at work, but also daily life by interacting with people.
Daniel Lapin 11:51
Renat, Could you identify a couple of main differences, like, what did you invader, find most interesting, most challenging in the differences between living in Lithuania and living in Germany.
Renat Buga 12:05
Well, Lithuania, though today, is very much Western focused, especially the younger generations. They look west try to think West were influenced by the Western media, nevertheless, you still feel that Soviet heritage, because that it was part of Soviet Union up until beginning of this, where it was split, and though it took the vector looking towards west, you still have especially older generations. But then you get this reflected in people's mindsets, in even in architecture, in daily life, there is still that heritage which was quite familiar to me, because I'm coming also from a post Soviet country. So that's actually was the reason why I choose a first Lithuania, which was like a mix in between EU and something which was I was familiar with. So here it's a pure Western mindset, and you notice there's differences in every day and every day in life. That's probably the biggest difference
Daniel Lapin 13:15
in the school. Your daughter's too young for school, so,
Renat Buga 13:19
oh yes, she's about to get two years.
Daniel Lapin 13:22
Yeah, right, of course. So that's nothing, nothing you have to worry about yet. And your spiritual and faith life in in Germany, what are you finding?
Renat Buga 13:32
Well, as we follow, observe Judaism, we are no heights.
Daniel Lapin 13:36
So you were raised, you were raised as a Christian or Eastern, Eastern Christianity, which
Renat Buga 13:46
is it? Yes, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. You were raised Eastern Orthodox. And your wife, Catholic, Catholic? Easter? Yes. So it was mild. It was mild, yeah, yeah, mostly like me in holidays and traditions and so forth.
Daniel Lapin 14:04
Yeah, gosh, so you're on a very interesting journey. I'm so fascinated. I really am. Yes, we are. I feel, I feel humbled and grateful to play a small role in your journey, and I appreciate that.
Renat Buga 14:18
Yeah, well, we appreciate it really, really much. Thanks to thanks to you. And there are few more rabbis who try to offer the Jewish wisdom to non Jewish world. So thank God. It's getting more and more of such material online, so it's getting more available to the wider public. Yeah, it does influence, and I think, well, you, I'm pretty sure, influence the lives of many like us. So coming back to your question about the spiritual life, so as we live with Judaism in our home, but a more simplified version of Judaism, so and not having a community. In our town where we live, for people who would be no heights as well, at least we are not aware of that's a bit challenging. So that's why, reinforcing our knowledge from materials that you provide and other sources, it helps us to strengthen that of our life faith.
Daniel Lapin 15:19
So finance and faith are under control,
Renat Buga 15:23
I believe so. But you know, you know 5f that, that this is, this is a challenge. I mean, you know, that's why you call us happy waters. It's a fight. So even goes with two F's, keeping them in balance, it's a big fight. But 5f to keep in the balance, it's, it's really challenging. That's why we are water. So we need to, every day to make efforts not give up and with a smile on the face, to try to keep everything under
Daniel Lapin 15:53
control. No, of course, of course. It's a wonderful challenge. On the family front, obviously, you are building your family just very beautifully, and I'm so proud of you. Are you able to stay in touch with Vader's family and with your family back in Moldova? Yeah, we do,
Renat Buga 16:10
thanks to what's up and then similar technologies, so I can share almost everything, what's happening in our live like pictures of the child, almost daily video calls, but we also do regular visits, both to back to Lithuania and to Moldova.
Daniel Lapin 16:28
And what's it been like for your wife to make friends in
Renat Buga 16:33
it's challenging because we didn't make great efforts to learn the language, and you know, probably that's Jewish proverb, if you want to speak to someone's heart, talk to him and his language. So yes, that's probably was the main reason that we kind of stayed more in our bubble. That's something we consider to fix past years, especially like arrival of the child is wasn't not much time dedicated for working on that aspect.
Daniel Lapin 17:06
Yeah, I understand. And you're pretty settled there. You're not looking further for the foreseeable future. You're building your family and your business in Germany.
Renat Buga 17:16
These are today's plans. We see. We are always open for better future. We'll see how it goes.
Daniel Lapin 17:23
Yeah, right. Well, it's been so nice learning a little bit more about you. I mean, we've been in touch. It's been quite a few years already, but this is really the first opportunity to talk a little bit and explore your life as a happy warrior. So please, would you give my warmest regards to Vader? Definitely yes to you, Renat. God bless you, and thank you so much for talking to me today. I appreciate it, and look forward to continuing working with you on our exciting new
Renat Buga 17:54
project. Thank you for inviting me. It's my greatest pleasure. We'll
Daniel Lapin 17:59
talk soon again. God bless Well, greetings, happy warriors. And as I've been promising you, here is an interview, a conversation between two friends, and it's one I've been looking to, looking forward to for a long, long time. And my thought was, you know, I'm going to record it because Renault booger, my guest currently in West Germany, one of the most interesting people I know, and somebody I've known for quite a few years. And I thought, well, I know it's going to be an interesting conversation, and I'm going to see we're going to record it, and if it is as interesting as I think it'll be, then I'm going to share it with you. And if you're all seeing it now, well, then you can see that the decision was indeed made to share it with you, but at the time of our recording, it's just a conversation, and I I've been looking forward to it amazingly. And Renat, thank you for being available. I know that there's a six hour difference, a time difference between us, and so it wasn't that easy to find a convenient time slot.
Renat Buga 19:07
Thank you, Rabbi for inviting me. It is my great privilege to be part of your show. I'll try my best. Let's see what comes out of it. But thank you really happy to be guest at your show.
Daniel Lapin 19:20
Well, thanks for being with us, and and, and here is why you actually, before I even tell people why, maybe just a little bit of a background, you and your wife, you were living in Lithuania,
Renat Buga 19:34
yeah, that's right. I'm originally from Moldova, but I moved to Lithuania, where I lived around 10 years, and this is where I met my wife,
Daniel Lapin 19:42
in in Lithuania. Have you been in in Estonia?
Renat Buga 19:50
Yeah, yeah. I traveled quite, quite a bit, including Baltics, so Latvia and Estonia. You've been exactly Yes. Were you ever in the city of Rita? Yeah, yeah, that's Latvia. That's capital free.
Daniel Lapin 20:04
My father used to vacation there while he was a student in yeshiva in Bible school.
Renat Buga 20:10
I didn't know about this, but I know that you have Litvak roots, and this is what makes me a little bit more connected with you.
Daniel Lapin 20:19
Oh, yeah, no, I couldn't believe it, because Vilna was the town I think you were in Vilnius, yeah, we lived in Vilnius, exactly. And you know, as well as I do that Vilnius, or as we call it, Vilna, for many, many, many years, was the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe, that's right. Or they also call it northern Jerusalem, northern Jerusalem, yeah. So it had a big Jewish population and and more importantly, it had an astonishingly important Jewish population because of the caliber of the rabbis and scholars that that lived there. And this, it may go back even earlier, but I know of the kind of people who lived in Vilna, going back to about the 16th century. Jews lived there and and flourished there for a long time, certainly the 1500s maybe before all the way until, I think it was June 1941, when the Nazis came into Vilna and collected Jews into a synagogue, set fire to some of them, the others, they took out to fields. Anyway, don't have to dwell on those terrible times, and that ended hundreds of years of flourishing and successful Jewish life in Lithuania. But what I Yes. So my dad studied in Lithuania. He was, he was born in South Africa, but he went back in his teenage years because he had relatives who were scholars and teachers, and he wanted to spend time studying under them, and so he went to Lithuania, and then during the summers, in those days, nobody flew back for summer vacation, back to your home. He was in Lithuania for about eight years, and there was no going back home. And by and then came World War Two. He escaped out, because it was not easy for Jews to get out of Lithuania by the time the Nazis came in. And he went home then and married my mom and I arrived a couple years later, while during summer vacations, when the school closed, he and his some of his buddies, used to go to Riga, which is sea, a seafront town.
Renat Buga 22:40
It's not far from sea. Yermala probably is the vacation place. It's next to Riga, okay, but Riga is very
Daniel Lapin 22:47
close to this. Yeah, he just used to say Riga. What I wanted to ask you is, of these Baltic states, Estonia Latvia Lithuania, and is there another one? Estonia Latvia Lithuania, three, three. Yeah, which one is most technologically advanced?
Renat Buga 23:06
Well, Estonia has been leading the list, especially with the arrival of Skype. This is what they it made a country of 1 million population famous worldwide, and this was their pride for pretty long, but later, other startups like bolt, I'm not sure if in America, they're popular, but in Europe, they're very popular with their taxi shared rights.
Daniel Lapin 23:34
Yes, bolt ran very successful bus services on the East Coast.
Renat Buga 23:41
Not sure if it's the same company, okay, yeah. But anyway So, and also, they started to implement various e government services, which made startups and generally tech oriented companies to relocate to Estonia. One of the advantages there is just small country, little over 1 billion. It's pretty easy to implement reforms, comparing to Lithuania and Latvia, not the only reason. So, yeah, they attracted talent. They were probably government was betting more into high tech development, and they were also leading in terms of GDP per capita, and still leading today, I think much due to their technological advancement, but Lithuania is catching up.
Daniel Lapin 24:26
And could you compare where you are now in Germany in terms of technological facilities compared to both Estonia and Lithuania?
Renat Buga 24:36
It depends. Germany is very paper based society, I think partially historically, partially due to fragmented the way how the country is organized. They are like states, and each state has its some of their own regulations. So if you want to implement some brief one, like. Say technological reform, like having a shared database across all states, then you need to get the consensus. So it takes longer, but generally, Germans are very much used to paper, including the cash money. Covid pushed, just like other countries, much into switching to E services, including government services. But I think Baltic countries, they are way ahead when it comes to electronic services, in particular government services,
Daniel Lapin 25:29
it's I find it interesting, because in my family tradition, you know, I know nothing about 21st Century Lithuania. I know a lot about 20th century and 19th century Lithuania. So to hear that, I'll tell you something funny. My brother decided to take a vacation to go to Lithuania.
Renat Buga 25:49
Amazing, amazing.
Daniel Lapin 25:53
And here's the funny thing, he said, I said to him, What was your biggest surprise? And he said, emotionally, said what I was not expecting. He said, the bright colors. There's colors everywhere. And I said, What do you mean? He said, well, think back to all the hundreds of photographs our father showed us of his life in Lithuania, all black and white. And so I have seen a picture of the school my father attended. But the funny thing is that when my brother sent me a picture of that same building, which still looks the same, I also was shocked to see it was colored. So I had just to me Lithuania was in black and white. Colors, no colors, just black and white. So that was it was because of that
Renat Buga 26:38
amazing, yeah, I think also spiritually, that has affected, like the wet fall of the 19 is right? So spiritually, black and white, and then probably these pictures also strengthen it with these memories. But yeah, I'm glad the this, this changed the view, and they advanced. The advanced matches pretty well advanced European country and has been growing in GDP among first in Europe for quite a few years in a row.
Daniel Lapin 27:10
And so if you're visiting Lithuania or Estonia or Latvia, your phone obviously works just fine. Why not? Yeah, right. And how about services like, you know, getting a car service or a taxi or something that, like, does Uber work? There things like that? Well, yeah,
Renat Buga 27:28
it does work. And as I mentioned this bolt, it says very similar to Uber. It's probably one of the their main competitors. So they started in Estonia, and they covered it initially all Baltic countries, and then they expand it way beyond. We have Uber, we have bolt, and many other companies. But it's way easier to scale in these Baltic countries, and often they are seen as one single market. So if multinational company wants to establish a food in any of these countries, they usually cover all three countries. It's too small to just spend marketing and administration efforts into just setting in one country. That's why, when you travel from one country to another, more or less you see the same chains. More or less you see the same services. You get the same services, because often they just cover all three countries at once, right?
Daniel Lapin 28:21
It's interesting to me, because there are countries you can visit in Europe today which are not very up to date technologically.
Renat Buga 28:31
Yes, yes, they are, however, what's the what's the irony is that often third world countries, they would be more, I wouldn't say more technological advance, but they would have, in certain fields, better technologies. And African countries are one of such examples, especially in mobile networks, because the technology skipped over the copper wire stage Exactly, yes. So the technology advances so much while we are today in a while other countries, they are still transitioning, maybe from G to four and then to five. They went ahead and installed 5g right away. Before that, they didn't have anything
Daniel Lapin 29:15
very interesting. Now, jumping to the current times. Renaud, you have performed for me a service that is so huge that I can't even begin to describe if, if I was paying you, I literally couldn't have paid you. This is a huge, huge thing you've created for me. Haven't told the folks yet what it is, but I'm going to in a moment. But what it does is make it easy and accessible for people who might previously have wanted to get deeper insight into ancient Jewish wisdom. They can do so much more easily now and so since I have not paid you the hundreds of 1000s of. Dollars that this thing should have cost. It leaves me to ask the question, which I believe I know the answer to, but which our audience is going to be interested to hear, and that is, why did you do this
Renat Buga 30:15
photo background? I am the product guy developing it. Products have been doing this for quite a while. So first the question why I wanted to have access to your knowledge in a way, as if I converse to you anytime of the day, whenever I need it, and well, as a family man, I have so many questions, and I have been growing spiritually, initially as an individual, then when I got married, we started to follow your teachings already together as a wife and in a family. And you cover a lot of family relationships, but not only, we had so many questions, like husband and wife relationships, children, relationships with parents, money and so on, so and I had so many questions and well, one of the problems is that, yeah, they're often answers to these questions, but you have to look through all your material. That's your books, podcasts, Googling, which takes a lot of time. So as someone who has been developing software products, I thought, well, there might be an easier solution to get access to knowledge. Exactly the answer to the question that I have, I know that there is somewhere else where you have an enormous amount of material published out there in different formats. And I know definitely there is this question answered not a single time. But to dig into all your material, it takes quite a lot of amount of time. So back then, actually, wasn't that long ago, when I developed this, there was this technology AI, which everyone is talking about getting popular, right? And it's still and then I thought, Okay, I'm interested in this technology. I, as someone who has been developing software products, I know that I can use the technology to solve people's problems or to provide to people's needs. And as you were teaching in somewhere out there, that the best new products services, they are coming of mixing of something existent. So basically, my invention wasn't that much of invention. It was just taking an existing thing, that is your knowledge, coupled with AI, and as a result, creating an AI persona of you whom I was able to ask anything I wanted, and the AI would answer in your style, using, of course, Your knowledge, and it turned out to be pretty great product. I like it myself, but we also asked other people, and then they just confirmed.
Daniel Lapin 33:09
I was skeptical, you know, I found it hard to believe that this was going to actually work, but I find it very exciting. And I'm going to say something that sounds weird, but I'm expressing an emotion I have on this in a way that aspect of my teaching will live forever. That's right. And so what you've created is being called rabbi Daniel Lapin AI. It is an artificial intelligence version of me, and it is right now being made available to Special Access happy warriors. Those of you who have joined into the special access part of our happy warrior community, and you are going to receive first shot at playing with us and using this. It's pretty extraordinary. Gosh, I wanted to ask you a technical question. I don't know if you have this number on the tip of your fingers, but approximately how many words of Mine are packed into this
Renat Buga 34:16
as I remember, they are around one 11 million words, which is equivalent to 140 average size books. That is all your material. Until a year ago, that's October 2024 since then, you publish a lot of material. So probably this would add another like 1,000,002 million more words, but there is a cut off of the knowledge that has been fed to
Daniel Lapin 34:47
the AI, yes, so, just so people should understand, I speak at approximately 100 words a minute, and so you see that, you know, 50 podcasts. A year over a number of years, and podcasts range anywhere from half an hour to one and a half or two hours. You see this? This does begin to add up. And so to what extent does it? Is it capable of making can it sound as if I am utterly confused, and I'm not confused, but I am astounded. Here's my question, Would it be possible for it to come up occasionally with an answer that is not correct, nowhere near anything I would have said, but by putting together various things and maybe drawing an incorrect conclusion?
Renat Buga 35:37
Yeah, yeah. There is a disclaimer, disclaimer that all AI conversational AI products they put in so AI can make mistake, double check or just be aware of this, at least. However, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, AI has some clear instructions that to not speculate if it doesn't find answer in its knowledge base that it is sad to say, well, I looked into all my knowledge base and I didn't find answer to the specific questions. So I would rather stay silent. And often it comes with some proverb, like a silence usually is gold, things like that, yeah. So to make it like more nice answer, yeah, it may make mistake, but this is taking into account the best to not do this and not speculate.
Daniel Lapin 36:28
So it's been programmed to acknowledge ignorance rather than come up with something.
Renat Buga 36:34
Yeah, I actually tried to make it to be as to impersonate you as much as possible. So if I were to talk to you, and obviously, as a human, you would at some, at some of the questions, say, I don't know. Don't have information right now, I just don't know. And I'm sure you just cut it off and say, I don't know. That's all right. So same AI, I think it shouldn't, ideally, it should not come up with, with answers which is, which is not, right, yeah. So that's, that's, that's the whole point to make, as close as a real you possible, in in its style, how it converts, how it formulates the answers, and including saying, I don't know, I don't have the answer, which I often say I haven't heard that often,
Daniel Lapin 37:21
because when I did talk radio, and there were conversations with callers, that was it would sometimes happen, somebody would ask me something I didn't expect to hear and I would say, You know what? I'm gonna take a few days to look into that, and I'll come back to you. I do not know what the answer is. Somebody asked me a question three days ago about the observance of the Sabbath, because it turns out the late Charlie Kirk used to observe Sabbath in a Jewish style on Saturday, and I think, but at any rate, somebody asked me about that, and I realized that I'd never been asked that question before. And I did say, I don't know, but I'm very interested in it, and I'll get back to you. So it does happen, there's a famous book, and there have been several movies about Dr Frankenstein, who created a monster. Was there any point in here where you said, Oh, my goodness, what have I built?
Renat Buga 38:16
Yeah, no, I don't think it's a monster. And I think, yeah, I think it has a real, great potential of making a big impact. And I don't think that there is anything similar so far. That would be an AI that impersonates a rabbi. Might be some gbts Which answer to Jewish questions, but a GPT would to try to impersonate as much as possible a single Rabbi with specifically his knowledge and his style. I'm not aware of this. Perhaps is there, but I don't think, and as you mentioned, it is perhaps. It's perhaps making you immortal. We are all mortal people, and I just like, if you want it today, if this technology existed and you want it today, we were talking about Wilner and convention, about Wilner Gaon as the famous rabbi
Daniel Lapin 39:13
and great, great 18th century rabbi who, I mean, in the books behind me are his works, and I don't think a month goes by without me looking up something. But imagine if I could actually ask him a question
Renat Buga 39:33
exactly, and you could talk to him, and not just in writing, but on at least a voice conversation to have, or ideal a video conversation. So the technologies permit today, and we actually experimented a bit with cloning your voice and actually putting your voice into this rabbi, Daniel Lapin, a and it turned out pretty well, yes, so technology is permitted. Even create your video image. So actually, everything is in place. Maybe it's not perfect, but I believe in a matter of a couple of years, the technology will be so accurate, then basically generations forward, could talk to you and have a similar conversation, just like I do today, anytime of the day and in any language, in their own language. So you don't speak all languages in the world, but the rabbi Daniel Lapin AI speaks almost any language.
Daniel Lapin 40:31
Renaud, what would be an example of one of the most surprising moments in your work on this and in your testing of this, was there any point at which you said,
Renat Buga 40:40
wow, yes, it was actually I, when I was making the first experiments, I did not expect it would be so good. I did not expect that it will so closely emulate you. But I, of course, I'm not you. Only you can judge how, how well does it? Does it simulate you? That's why I was eager to hear your feedback. What do you think about this?
Daniel Lapin 41:04
It literally, it blew me away. As they say, every time I play with it, I am astounded.
Renat Buga 41:11
Yeah, say, What's me so knowing more or less your persona, your style, having listened read a lot of your content and a lot of your material, I thought it does pretty good job in emulating you, but still, you'll be the one to put the verdict and yeah, and when you told me, Oh, actually, it does a pretty good job and emulate one of the emails you wrote me, I read this answer, that was me, and you put through This exclamation marks, that was me.
Daniel Lapin 41:42
Yes, one happy warrior who's been testing it said to me, I hate to say this rabbi, but it's better than you. Be better than me. It says, He said, it's very simple. Occasionally, when I ask you something, you say, I don't remember. I have to look that up. But Rabbi Daniel Lapin AI has never said, I don't remember. It remembers everything
Renat Buga 42:06
exactly, exactly when in certain aspects, as maybe and not as pleasant it might sound. It might be better, but, of course, it will. It will never replace a real conversation with you.
Daniel Lapin 42:17
Well, the thing is, of you to say that, but I'm not sure you believe that, and I'm not sure I believe that
Renat Buga 42:23
Rabbi, what it does actually, it multiplies you by unlimited amount of times. That means everyone can have access to you today, anytime on the day, in any language, 1000s of years ahead from now. I mean, yeah, you it. That's, that's that's a great advantage, and that means your knowledge, your wisdom, and ancient Jewish wisdom, can be now accessed by way more people in in a format which is way easier accessible. And coming back to your question, why did I do this? So that's what's the whole purpose, like making your knowledge accessible in a conversational way. Whenever I need it,
Daniel Lapin 43:04
I will tell her personally when we get a chance to meet. But in meantime, would you please tell your wife how much I appreciate her letting you take the hours and hours that you've invested in this thing
Renat Buga 43:17
she'll be happy to hear because sometimes she sees me staring this computer for hours, and she might not fully understand what I'm doing there, but I'll be happy to pass her Okay, that was a well time spent.
Daniel Lapin 43:32
Please do. It's very, very exciting, and again, for people who want to start using this. And I can't tell you, Renat, you don't know how many emails I get from happy warriors and other people who say, is there any way I could talk to you on the phone for half an hour? I have some important questions, and the answer is, just because of the realities of life. It's not possible. I don't have available these half hour slots that I can as much as I would love to do that. And now I can say that you can get 90 plus percent of whatever my conversation with you might have yielded, you can get a whole lot of that right now. If you head over to Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and start exploring the wonderful world of my artificial intelligence reality, there I am and and, yes, it was eerie to hear my voice when it synthesized my voice. I thought, wow, this is too much.
Renat Buga 44:43
Let's take it step by step, step
Daniel Lapin 44:45
by step, for sure, what we have right now is absolutely fantastic. Renat, we'll talk some more obviously, and I know we're going to work out a way to either meet in the United States or else in Germany. Germany, or maybe somewhere else in between that we can coordinate our travels, but we will make that happen as soon as possible. Very much looking forward to it. Thanks so much. And thank you for sharing this, because I do want to post this, and I do want to make this available for everybody to hear, but you and I obviously will continue our conversation. I'm always available to you, of course, as you know, thank
Renat Buga 45:23
you, Rabbi. It's my great pleasure again to be part of the show and to of your mission of sharing ancient Jewish wisdom with the
Daniel Lapin 45:32
world. Thank you so much. And it's been an absolute pleasure and a one and a wonder collaborating on this. It's so much more than I imagined it could ever be. It's been quite well. It's life changing. So until we talk next time, which I hope will be soon, I want to wish you a Shana Tova, a happy new year and a year of good health and happiness for you and your family and all the five key areas of your life,
Renat Buga 46:03
thanks to you, Shana Tova and Shalom.
