TAG Director Rabbi Nechemia Gottlieb discusses his organization’s solution for combating chatbot phone numbers

 

By Reuvain Borchardt

 

 

The yetzer hara never rests—and nor can those on the forefront of fighting it.

 

After two decades of asifos, education, and ad campaigns, the phenomenon of filtering cellphones and computers is ingrained in Torah Jewry. Smartphones and computers with TAG (Technology Awareness Group) filters are ubiquitous, while many have opted for phones with only calling.

 

Yet the rise of AI and its chatbots have brought a whole new set of spiritual challenges, says TAG Director Rabbi Nechemiah Gottlieb.

 

“Until recently, internet access was on a device with processing power. You needed a computer, smartphone, or tablet. But now the cloud has become so powerful that you don’t need such a device. You just have to have access to the cloud, and now you can access that with a phone number,” Rabbi Gottlieb says in an exclusive interview with The Voice in which he announced TAG’s new AI phone filter.

 

“That’s the world that we’re heading into, and this is just the first whiff of that world. In the long term, we don’t know if there will be technical solutions, but we think that we have a pretty good solution for right now.”

 

TAG had long been aware of the pitfalls available on the phone, from numbers with improper material to chat rooms where teens spend hours discussing inappropriate matters.

 

But the rise of AI chatbots, with human voices and the availability of content that has ensnared some of our youth, brought a whole new urgency to the point that leading rabbanim in Lakewood and beyond recently held a meeting about the issue in Bais Faiga Hall, where they were addressed by TAG Assistant Director Rabbi Moshe Drew.

 

“Those other phone numbers were only used by people looking for trouble,” Rabbi Gottlieb says. “But the chatbot issue is an urgent priority because as it turns out, the frummer you are and the less access you have to the traditional web, the more likely you are to call AI for information on the phone, because that’s your only source. Bachurim in yeshivah dorms like to call AI and hock politics or whatever and were sadly falling prey to the exposure these numbers offered. The frummest people are sometimes the most susceptible.”

 

And so, TAG was instructed by its rabbanim to get into the phone-number-filtering business, and Rabbi Drew began heading up the project. Just as years ago TAG had set about compiling lists of improper websites to block for internet filters, now it would have to get lists of such phone numbers to block for phone filters. It hired non-Jews to search for these numbers and has compiled a list of thousands of them.

 

The next step is blocking these numbers on TAG devices.

 

TAG’s plan is for all its approved cellphones to have a system that allows it to dynamically block any call on its blacklist from going through. Some of its cellphones already have this capability; others will roll out the capability in the coming weeks. Some phones will require a visit to a TAG location to update the filter, while others will be updated automatically.

 

Additionally, many phones—including those that are talk-only—will have an app that allows users to report if they come across an improper number that should be added to the list. Once the number is reported, it will be checked by one of TAG’s non-Jewish employees, and if confirmed, it will be added to the global blacklist.

 

For landline phones, fixes are coming that are groundbreaking for TAG: filtering home phone lines to block improper numbers.

 

The organization had already created filters for landline phone systems that use VOIP (internet) service, but only for mosdos, which have dozens or hundreds of lines. But now, a new company named Kosher Phone Networks (a division of TelTik) will be providing VOIP landline service for homes. People who use VOIP phone service can now cancel their phone service, port their number over to Kosher Phone Networks, and get kosher VOIP service.

 

Many homes without an internet line get their landline service from a technology called VoLTE, which puts a SIM card hooked up to cellphone towers into a landline phone. Kosher Phone Networks will have a service available for this phone system as well.

 

For the small percentage of homes that still use traditional telephone lines, TAG has no way of filtering the line.

 

Therefore, though he concedes that these SIM cards often have some quality reliability issues, as they’re essentially just cellphones with wires, Rabbi Gottlieb is urging those who use traditional telephone service to switch their home phone to the SIM service.

 

“It’s true that they’ll lose the reliability of the old telephone wires,” he says, “but that’s a small price to pay to keep our children safe in a truly frightening world.”

 

Yes, that’s right. The yetzer hara is ever evolving, and whereas a traditional landline phone was once thought to be the most kosher device possible, now the TAG director is advising everyone to get their service via internet or SIM so that a TAG filter can be installed.

 

Many of these fixes are up and running; others will be within days.

 

Anyone wishing to switch over to any of these TAG services — cellphone, VOIP, or SIM — can find info at protect.tag.org, email [email protected] or call 848-360-5504.

 

Just as the rabbanim once urged everyone to get filters on their computers or cellphones, Rabbi Gottlieb says there will soon be a letter from leading rabbanim urging everyone to get their telephones filtered as well.

 

The man who has been leading the charge for maintaining kedushah in the face of technological challenges says he’s not surprised that things are changing so drastically, so quickly.

 

“I remember when, 15 years ago, Rav Matisyahu zt”l said he knows that filtering isn’t going to be an ultimate solution. So the fact that the world is heading in the direction where filters might become ineffective or insufficient is not a surprise to us. We’re always trying to keep up with the trends to protect Klal Yisrael.”

 

However, he says, he’s not surprised, either, that a solution appears to have been found, at least for the time being.

 

“We thought 10 years ago there weren’t going to be anymore flip phones available, but we were dead wrong. There are 25 models of flip phones right now. So we see that when the Eibershter decides he wants to send a yeshuah, He sends it.”

—

[email protected]