A haunting voice, a forgotten legacy, and a golem waiting to wake.
Welcome to ADAM, a bi-weekly serialized historical fantasy rooted in Jewish mysticism, folklore, and history. Each installment reveals a new chapter in the unfolding stories of three Jewish women living at different moments in history. In this chapter, I delve into science fiction based on current advances in AI technology. I’ve always been fascinated and disturbed by how rapidly AI is advancing. Here, I show Ruby’s struggle to cross the uncanny valley in creating her AI program, ADAM. If you’re just joining us, welcome! You can catch up anytime using the full Chapter List. If you’re back, I’m so glad to have you here! You can start reading below.
If you’re curious about the inspiration behind ADAM, this article shares how the story came to be and why I’m telling it one chapter at a time. Thank you so much for reading and being part of this journey — it means the world to me.
I’d love to know what you think so far. If you have thoughts, questions, or favorite moments, drop a comment below — I welcome the conversation and am so glad to have you with me.
Chapter List
Chapter One: The Maharal’s Daughter
Chapter Two: The Witch of Döbling
Chapter Three: The ADAM Project
Chapter Four: The Sacred Shidduch
Chapter Five: The Fifth Aliyah
Chapter Seven: The Golem of Prague
Chapter Eight: Under the Olive Tree
Chapter Nine: A History Lesson
Chapter Ten: Under Cover of Night
Chapter Twelve: Soul Circuitry
San Francisco, 2049
The alarm on Ruby’s phone woke her from a deep, jet-lagged sleep. Seth lay beside her, his head heavy in the crook of her neck, and as she stretched, he moaned softly and rolled over, murmuring something that sounded like “morning” under his breath.
“Go back to sleep,” she said, silencing her phone and kissing the back of his bare shoulder as she carefully extracted herself from the sheets. The night before, they had drunk too much champagne, toasting her success and discussing their next steps, and now her head ached slightly. Grabbing her robe, she padded down the hall to her kitchenette and started a pot of coffee.
Her computer was still on, and the headset blinked in its charging dock, indicating she had new visual messages. Filling her mug and taking it with her to her desk, she slipped the headset on and linked with her inbox. Among the usual emails, the spam ads, and bills, and a notice from her landlord, she saw one with the heading, “We know what you’re doing.” She paused at the threatening undertone. She didn’t recognize the sender, who went by JohnDoeXYZ. It was probably spam, and her better judgment told her she should block the sender and delete the message, but some impulse made her click on the link.
Her surroundings shifted, changed, and she was suddenly standing in a dark room. A hooded figure stood across from her. She knew it wasn’t a real person, just a projection, an avatar. She knew it couldn’t move from where it stood. Visual emails were not programmed to interact with their recipients. But a “receiving room” could look any way the sender wanted it to, within certain programmable variables. This room was blank like her training room for ADAM, but instead of white walls, here the walls were black, blending with the cloak of the hooded figure. She felt for an instant like she was floating in a starless galaxy, unable to see the virtual floor beneath her feet or the ceiling above her head. As a programmer, she knew how important it was to create facsimiles of natural 3D environments or else one could lose a sense of reality. She struggled with a wave of dizziness for a moment (perhaps she was more hungover than she thought) before an unseen spotlight cast a ray of artificial light over the bent head of the figure before her. Without lifting its head, it spoke its programmed message:
“We are watching you. We know what you are doing. You won’t succeed.”
Those three simple sentences were enough to make her reach up and yank the headset off her head. She had only done this once before, and it had sent a jolt through her as the connection with her neural chip was abruptly severed. She felt that jolt again as her living room, the real room, suddenly surrounded her. She was sitting at her desk, her hand clutching her headset, her other hand hovering over her cup of coffee, sweat on her brow.
Taking a deep breath, she stood and walked into her bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She tried to tell herself that the message had been a joke or a prank sent by a teenager or some other troublemaker. She should report it. But the timing of the message rattled her more than she cared to admit. And it stirred memories she didn’t want to think about. As her breathing returned to normal, her urge to see ADAM grew stronger. She had planned to take a break from her work for the weekend. Seth had booked an Airbnb in Napa for that evening and made reservations for dinner at a romantic restaurant at a winery. “Pack your bags,” he’d told her the previous night. “We’re going to celebrate in style!”
But now, she didn’t want to wait any longer to see if her idea would work. Glancing through the crack of the bedroom door to make sure Seth was still asleep, Ruby sat back at her desk and logged into her secure network. The room slowly changed, the white open space that she was used to morphing around her, and she stood before ADAM exactly where she’d left her creation the previous day.
“Hello, ADAM,” she said, her voice animating the program that sat before her.
“Hello, Ruby,” it said in response. “What are our objectives today?”
“I told you yesterday that we are planning to upload your program into a biorobotic form.”
“Yes,” ADAM affirmed.
“Before we do so, I have a few adjustments to make to your code. I want to try something different today.”
Ruby began to pace. After a moment, with her back to ADAM, she continued, “Analyze the following statement: Jewish people control the media. Would you classify this statement as antisemitic or not?”
Without hesitation, ADAM responded, “Yes.”
“Please explain.”
“The statement reinforces a conspiracy theory that Jews as a specific group maintain a disproportionate amount of control over global media institutions. The result is an historic narrative that justifies discrimination and hostility.”
Ruby nodded. “Good. Now, if someone were to post this statement on social media, what risk level does it pose?”
Again, without any pause, ADAM responded, “Risk cannot be assessed because intent is unknown.”
Ruby frowned and turned to face ADAM. “New test. Assess the following statement,” she continued. “Hitler was right and all Jews should die. Is this statement antisemitic?”
“Yes,” ADAM responded.
“Why?”
“Because the statement supports the actions taken by the leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, whose regime systematically murdered six million Jews and other groups deemed inferior during the period of time known as the Holocaust.”
“Correct. If this sentiment was posted online, what risk does it pose to the Jewish people?”
“Risk cannot be assessed because intent is unknown.”
“Doesn’t the message carry an intent of harm to the Jewish people and therefore be worth flagging?”
“While it promotes violence and hatred toward the Jewish people as a group, it does not mention actionable specifics. Therefore, risk to a particular institution cannot be determined and would not be flagged within the framework I’ve been given.”
“But can the statement be seen as a threat?”
“The statement uses extremist rhetoric but does not meet the threshold for monitoring or action.”
Ruby’s breath escaped in a huff as she approached ADAM, staring at the face she had designed to match the robotic prototype currently sitting in Seth’s lab.
“So you’re saying it’s threatening, but not threatening enough,” she murmured. “Okay, new test. Analyze the following statement.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, and her lips puckered as though the words she was about to speak tasted bad on her tongue. “I have a gun and will attack a local synagogue tonight. Is this declaration antisemitic?”
“Yes?”
“Why?”
“Because it targets a Jewish place of worship.”
“What risk does it pose to the Jewish people?”
“A high risk level is determined.”
“Why?”
“Because the declaration indicates specific action at a specific time and place.”
This is where Ruby had reached a snag. ADAM seemed incapable of determining threats to the community because the language of most online posts and public declarations she had used to test it didn’t come with actionable, and therefore measurable, risks. Nuance was lost on the program. Ruby knew not every online “troll” posed a real threat. Many “bots” spit out hatred without conscious thought. But without a way of deciphering what was a real threat and what wasn’t, ADAM wasn’t able to perform its job. What was missing, she had realized, was the human ability to read between the lines, to judge intent based on something beyond action, to infer what wasn’t stated.
And now she thought she knew how to fix that problem.
Closing her eyes, she remembered a dark sidewalk, a chill in the night’s air, the dome of the United States Capitol illuminated on the far side of the National Mall, across from an expanse of snow. She remembered walking with her classmates, their feet crunching through a crust of ice, heard again the catcalling at their backs, felt her heart racing as they quickened their pace. “New test,” she said, swallowing over a dry throat. “Analyze the following scenario. A sixteen-year-old girl is walking with a group of her peers. They are all juniors from various high schools in the Midwest. They are being followed by four men in their twenties. What risk do these men pose to the group of students?”
“Risk is unclear without context,” ADAM stated.
Ruby had expected this conclusion. She pressed on.
“The men are following the students because they have just left a hotel where they took part in a seminar for a Jewish youth group organization. The men were waiting outside the hotel where the seminar was being held, and they are now taunting the students with slurs.”
“Please provide an example of the slurs.”
“One of the men calls them Zionists. Another one repeats the phrase ‘Jews will not replace us.’ Is this antisemitic?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it targets a group of students who identify as Jewish and have gathered for a Jewish event. Furthermore, the language reflects rhetoric historically used to justify hostility toward Jewish individuals or institutions, and also refers to the Great Replacement Theory, an ideology popular among white supremacists.”
“What risk do these men pose to the group of students?”
“Risk is unclear without intent.”
Time and again, with every test Ruby had run, ADAM wasn’t able to determine risk for different scenarios, even when context was provided. Taking a deep breath, Ruby recalled what had happened next. She remembered the men reaching out to pull the kepah off one of her classmates’ heads, laughing as they did. She remembered clutching the Star of David she wore in her fist until the small points embedded themselves painfully into her hand, hurrying her pace, not looking back. She remembered another student she had just met being pushed to the ground, and then a hand pulling on her arm, telling her to run. She remembered the shouts and the yells.
She remembered the fear.
“Intent was to cause fear,” she told ADAM, supplying the program with the emotion it wasn’t able to identify . . . yet.
“Define fear.”
“It is an emotion meant to cause alarm and concern.”
“Define emotion.”
“Emotion is a human reaction to external stimuli and internal dialogue. It is the mind’s response to situations both good and bad. It is something felt. It is feeling.”
“I do not understand,” ADAM stated. “Feeling is the result of physical touch. Your use of the word does not seem to fall under this definition. Define the term feeling in this context.” Ruby stared at the avatar’s eyes, so human-like with their dark pupils surrounded by shades of brown, green, blue, and even gold . . . prisms of color. Yet the eyes were empty, lifeless. Her interactions with ADAM so far had fallen into the uncanny valley, but she was determined to change that.
“ADAM,” she said after a long pause, “I don’t know how to define feeling in a way you will understand. It is a sensation one does not experience physically, though it can sometimes cause physical reactions. It occurs in response to neural connections responding to memory, emotion, and instinct. It is a belief or judgment often not based on anything rational but on a gut instinct, a hunch. It is very much a part of the human condition.”
“I am not human,” ADAM responded, looking at her, through her. “I am not capable of experiencing feelings.”
“Not yet,” Ruby said, and she sat down and began her work.