Ashamed to Admit
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Hosted by comedians Tami Sussman and Shoshana Gottlieb, each episode breaks down the big, chewy, occasionally ridiculous questions of Jewish life, identity and community, with warmth, wit, and zero judgment.
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Funny, irreverent, and genuinely educational. You don't have to be Jewish to love it. But it helps to have a sense of humour.
Ashamed to Admit
Episode #33 Is AI prejudice towards Jews? With Guido Melo
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Artificial Intelligence is on the rise – even this description could be written by AI! But what does AI think about Jews? In this episode, Tami and Dash talk to Afro-Brazilian, Aussie-Jewish writer and academic Guido Melo about the risks of AI stereotyping and prejudice.
Articles related to this episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/what-generative-ai-thinks-about-jews
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/what-travel-taught-me-about-my-identity-as-a-black-jew-ish-man
Email your feedback and voice memos here: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
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Introduction to Ashamed to Admit
Speaker 1Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in real life and online ? But a little bit ashamed that you're barely keeping up to date .
Speaker 2Well , you've come to the right place . I'm Dash Lawrence and in this podcast series , your spicy third cousin , Tammy Sussman , and I call on experts and each other to address all the ignorant questions that you might be too ashamed to ask .
Speaker 1Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics .
Speaker 2Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast . Ashamed to Admit , a shame to admit . Hello everyone , I'm Dash .
Speaker 1Lawrence , executive Director here at the Jewish Independent , and I'm Tammy chronically ill , but make it cute , sussman . I've spoken about my arthritis on this show before , but I haven't spoken about the immunosuppression , have I ? It's a little bit boring .
Speaker 2No , I'm interested to learn more .
Speaker 1Are you actually ?
Speaker 2Does that sound disingenuous ? No , definitely . I want to hear what's happening for you this week .
Speaker 1Members of the Jewish community have autoimmune issues , and mine is autoimmune arthritis , inflammation , pain , fatigue , and so I take medication for that . And the great thing about the medication is it helps my pain and my fatigue . And the bad thing about the medication is that it suppresses my immune system . So I catch everything Every day is do I want to be in pain and exhausted or do I want to have a persistent cough ? This week I've chosen persistent cough . Luckily for you , Dash , it means that I'm not really able to talk much today . I've prepared something for you to read . I wanted it to be a surprise .
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1Okay , so I'm sending it to you now . I'd like you to read the body of the email in its entirety .
Speaker 2So email's arrived in , tammy . Thank you for sending it . So email reads hello Dash , I wanted to honour your Irish ancestry and the Jewish family you've created with your Jewish partner , so I asked AI to write a limerick about you . Can you please read it now ? Thanks so much , tammy .
Speaker 1Okay , before you read the limerick , I did put partner in capital letters , because you always correct me when I say wife , you say partner .
Speaker 2It's correct , we're not married .
Speaker 1Because you're super cool , you live in North Melbourne . People don't get married , they're just partners .
Speaker 2So the limerick goes . There was once a fellow named Dash whose love for the Jews was no clash . He'd donate his cash and join each festive bash and stand with them , bold in a flash . Tammy , that is terrible . I mean who ,
Meet Guido Mello: From Brazil to Judaism
Speaker 2what , where , why , why ?
Speaker 1Why did I get ChatGPT to write a limerick about you ?
Speaker 2Yes , why do you think Today's ?
Speaker 1episode is all about AI Mm-hmm , Specifically how AI imagines Jews .
Speaker 2There are many great advantages to AI , I think both of us also see some of its limitations and some of its problems . In fact , I'm now recalling that , by way of example , in season two , when we had David Baddiel on the program , you shared with David and the listeners and if you haven't heard that episode , you must do One of our great episodes to date but at the end of that conversation you shared with David an image that you asked ChachiBT to create of him golf and bringing in Jewish elements . And what did AI spit out ?
Speaker 1A few golf balls and some cats . And to represent his Jewishness , there was no menorah , there were no Shabbat candles , there was no Sidor or Talit prayer shawls , it was just money candles .
Speaker 2There was no Sidor or Talit prayer shawls . It was just money , just money , just money . Astounding . So clearly there are some real problems with AI . It's the way that it sources its information and then the types of stereotypes that it perpetuates . This is a problem because in years to come , we're going to see an increasing number of AI images used across our news media , across the internet , I mean it will be ubiquitous .
Speaker 1That's right . In fact , after I published that reel where I exposed the problematic image of David Baddiel that AI had created , one of our listeners , Guido Mello , commented and said that this is what his research is zooming into .
Speaker 2Guido has recently published an article on the Jewish Independent this is how AI Imagines Jews , and in that article Guido shares his research not only on the way that AI generates stereotypical , anti-semitic images and ideas of Jewish people , but also the way that people respond to those images and the ways that the imagery reinforces some of the biases and the perceptions that people have . So really encourage our listeners to take a look at Guido's article , but for the time being , have a listen to our conversation with Guido Mello , who is a master's researcher from Victoria University here in Melbourne . He's a published author and a multilingual columnist in Portuguese , spanish and English . A Jewish community member completing his conversion , guido focuses on AI erasure and biases in artificial intelligence .
Speaker 2His writings can be found across multiple countries , including Australia , the Americas and Africa and , of course , in our humble little publication , the Jewish Independent . Enjoy this fascinating conversation about the scary , dark but ultimately hopeful world of AI . Guido , we're going to talk about a recent article of yours in the Jewish Independent , where you shared with us some really fascinating research looking at stereotypes and prejudice and anti-Semitism in AI , a new emerging field . But before we get there , tell Tammy and I and our listeners about your unconventional path to life in the Australian Jewish community .
Speaker 3I was born in Brazil and I was born in a city called Salvador . Not like the country , there's no L , so it's just Salvador , and it's in the northeast of Brazil and it's the most African city outside of Africa . You know most African city outside of Africa . You know like 75% of the population is African descendants . And for people who doesn't know , all Brazilians , africans or black people really came because of the transatlantic slavery trade . And another thing that people don't know is that most of the humans that came from Africa enslaved to the Americas , came to Brazil . The population of the United States of Africans is about 50 million . In Brazil it's about 120 million .
Speaker 1Wow , I didn't know that .
Speaker 3Yeah , so if Brazil was a country in Africa , it would be the second largest , just behind Nigeria .
Speaker 2Do you know much about the story of your ancestors and when and how they found their way to Brazil ?
Speaker 3No , absolutely not . So what happened is there was an event which is kind of a history erasure , which is similar to what I studied in my research . History erasure which is similar to what I studied in my research . This Brazilian president decided to eliminate all of the traces of slavery to show that it was important for community to move on . So he burned all the documents . Then we can all start like a kind of an year zero , like Pol Pot tried to do in Cambodia . And he did that . So it burned out the documents . On my father's side , which is entirely West Africa , on my mother's side , funnily enough , my grandfather , who is a white Portuguese guy , apparently had blue eyes . So my mom says , and his name is Oliveira , 50% of the Oliveiras are Jewish converts who , after the Inquisition , were forced into conversion to Catholicism . So you know , maybe I'll start there .
Speaker 2This is going to become particularly relevant when you tell us about how it is that you came into the Jewish community and into Judaism , because you weren't born Jewish , as we'll soon discuss . Tell us about your upbringing .
Speaker 3This is a shame to admit moment . Recently , the Brazilian film industry won an Oscar for a movie called I Still here , or Ainda Estou Aqui in Portuguese , and the movie depicts a dictatorship in Brazil that began in 1964 and lasted until 1985 . So I lived , actually lived through a dictatorship , you know , a military dictatorship , and my shape to the mid-moment is , paradoxically , my father , who is a very left-wing Marxist guy who taught me like when I was 13
Life Under Brazilian Dictatorship
Speaker 3, he gave me Karl Marx to read because he's like oh , you need to read the manifesto , the communist manifesto , and I did . He was from the Air Force , my father was from the Air Force , so the military dictatorship that oppressed Brazil and oppressed people like me was also what defended me or protected me because , as I said , my father was in the Air Force during the dictatorship of the military . It's important to note for me personally and for the record because this is a record that might last forever that my father often told me how he did not participate in the dictatorship and he refused to engage and he was very left-wing , and I think that's important for me , you know , for his record . But we were part of the dictatorship , which is so connected to what Israel is today .
Speaker 3For me , because things are so complicated and people want an easy answer , it's like oh , you're part of the dictatorship , you're the bad guy , and you're not part of the dictatorship , you're the good guy . And for me , that's why maybe for me it's so easy to comprehend Even with someone that didn't grow up with , you know Israel in the forefront that yes , there's things that we can criticize , but within that system that clog , there's humans , and all these humans have these particular stories . And , yeah , I don't see things as bad and as good , and I often tell my kids there's no good and there's no bad . You have to remember that , that no one is really good . And I often tell my kids there's no good and there's no bad . You have to remember that , that no one is really good , no one is bad . People live circumstantially and they will do bad things .
Speaker 1Guido , that's very wise words , but we've skipped over a little bit . We still don't know how you came to Australia and found yourself in Melbourne's Jewish community .
Speaker 3Talk us through that so when I lived in Rio , I used to work in a cyber cafe fixing computer printers and plugging people to the internet , and I met this young , well , ashkenazi girl . At the time we were both very young and , yeah , we got together .
Speaker 1So she was in Brazil .
Speaker 3She was visiting Brazil . She was , you know , doing a walking holiday from London , from England . She came to Rio , met me . I convinced her to stay . She lived there for almost a year , over nine months , and then we decided to get engaged , you know , and we chose , you know like , we could live here , we could go back to Australia . She said I have to finish my university . We came back to Australia and from that moment on I was a member of a Jewish family . You know , and I don't know , like , maybe a few months later I was going to a bar mitzvah with one of the cousins and I went to that . There's a beautiful synagogue in Melbourne , Turak , I think it's called the Melbourne Synagogue . It's like a very big dome .
Speaker 2This is Turak Shul . I think it's the second oldest synagogue in Melbourne .
Speaker 3yeah , yeah , on Turak Shul , I think it's the second oldest synagogue in Melbourne . Yeah , on Turak Road , and I went to a Bahamian for that and I was like , oh , I like this and I really you know , I can't explain it . Well , I think the simplest way is that my father , he was really an admirer of Jewish thinking . We read Kafka , or you know I said Marx , and he always talked about Jewish composers and
Journey to Australia's Jewish Community
Speaker 3we watched many Holocaust films and he was very interested . There was very a big connection between . He could see parallels between the African , black suffering and the Jewish suffering , so he was very interested .
Speaker 2You're in Melbourne . This is in the 1990s , I imagine .
Speaker 3No , no , no , early 2000s , so 2003 .
Speaker 2Okay , the early 2000s , but certainly I don't imagine there were a lot of newly arrived Afro-Brazilians in the Jewish community at that time .
Speaker 3No , there wasn't and there isn't today .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3I'm like the single African guy in my congregation , which is fine .
Speaker 2Sometimes the community is accused by itself of being exclusionary , being discriminatory to some members of the diverse Jewish community that we have in Melbourne and in Sydney . Was that your experience in the early 2000s ?
Speaker 3Well , the way I see it is , racism always exists in all aspects of my life , but I don't have any case where I was singled out in my congregation or even every congregation I've been because I was black . But I know , you know I can't control individuals . You know , like I remember there was this guy that was looking at me once at shoe Not the shoe I currently go under , one of the shoes . I've been to many and he was looking at me . I think I said Shabbat Shalom or whatever , and he's like didn't reply and I was like , okay , you know , whatever , you know like , you know like it's , but I it's , it's just one person .
Speaker 3But yeah , so I I really connected to my wife's ex-wife she's at next now , but we're somewhat friendly because we shared three kids , but yeah , I love the Shabbos . I was like everyone was yelling at each other . She was yelling at her mom and she was like , wow , this is , I wanted that . I like that . I tell people I joined Judaism for the challah and for the latkes and then I got October 7th , you know , like as a side .
Speaker 1As a side dish .
Speaker 3And I always felt connected . I realized later on I had a lot of Jewish friends . I basically was Jewish already , without you know , having done the conversion , and I found this you know , great rabbi , and that's sort of that's the journey I'm living now , but it's like I really felt that was always part of my life . And my rabbi says you know . Rabbi Allison says you know , you're just returning . You're just returning and I feel like that you know .
Speaker 1So we've heard a little bit about your context and your relationship to Judaism and Jewishness , which is important for our listeners to know , especially when it comes to the work that you're doing now , and that is in academia . So what originally led you to academia ?
Speaker 3Well , I was always a reader . I loved nonfiction . I'm really interested in the ways the word works and the system works and power and dynamics and gender and race and history . And when I moved to Australia , I only had year 12 . So I completed year 12 .
Speaker 3And my ex-wife and I , we opened a business and I started to make money out of this business selling women's clothes and women's jewelry from South America , mostly from Brazil , but also from Argentina , peru , chile and I remember talking to my father . He passed away in 2017 , but that's like you know , 2005 or 2006 . And I said to him you know , I moved to Australia . Now I could study , but the whole point of study for me was to make money . And I said to him I'm already making money , but , yeah , so in 2019 , as my relationship really went south , like I realized we were divorcing , I thought you know what I always wanted to do ? This ? I'm not really into fashion anymore . I want to do academia , but I still was thinking I should do one degree , one for me and one for the business . So I did a diploma of professional writing and editing , which I could use for copywriting for my website at the time , and then I did the bachelor's of digital media and writing , and digital media is where I started to use , you know , the tools that I could use for my business and I realized really digital media was very Eurocentric .
Speaker 3Like I remember , I went to a class and this woman was teaching us about film and she said the first films were made da , da , da , da da . And she was telling something about Europe and she never mentioned Bollywood . And it's like really , you got paid to teach film and you're not even going to mention Bollywood , not even going to mention polio , not mention , not even sure , not teach , but not mention . So this is eurocentric . And I was typing my tiktok and I saw the , the filter , and the filter showed me my features but like it sort of thinned my nose and made my eyes green and made my head straight and and I was like here is the most beautiful version of you . And I was like no , that's not beautiful , you know for me , and that's what led me to the research . I was like what else AI is telling people ? That's the most beautiful ? It's right or wrong . Maybe even two years ago I typed Jewish people . Two years ago it was like people in grey with sad faces . That was Jewish people .
Speaker 1So you're saying , if you typed into something like chat GPT , show me an image of a Jewish person , it would feed back . Something to you that looked like it would feed back something to you that looked like Two years ago .
Speaker 3It looked like Holocaust figures and sad people , people wearing grey and skinny , and it was really horrible . Now , two years later , that was in the beginning . Now , two years later , it improved , but then it became ultra-stereotype into , like you know , bearded men . So basically all Jews are Ashkenazis .
Speaker 1According to AI , according to AI .
Speaker 3Most Jews are men , like basically they don't have women . And it's funny because if you type family , they would put two guys . They don't have women . And it's funny because if you type family , they would put two guys . They would put a guy and another guy , and a girl and a boy or a guy and a guy and a boy .
Speaker 3But they wouldn't put a woman , like they couldn't . The AI cannot see a Jewish woman unless if you say Jewish woman , if you say Jewish family , it thinks it's all men . And if you put Zionists , you have this army looking , people looking very bad at the camera
AI's Problematic Jewish Representations
Speaker 3.
Speaker 2They look aggressive . We encourage the listener to take a look at some of the photos that Guido unearthed through his research , and we'll put the link to that in the show notes . But , guido , can you just help ? Tammy and I understand the mechanism that sits underneath AI , so if you were to look under the hood , what exactly is running it that generates the images that we see ? I use AI frequently , but I've actually got really very little understanding and knowledge of what it draws on .
Speaker 3Yeah , it's really not transparent . Exactly what goes inside of that jush ? It's basically a big cooking of information that is collected , scavenged , really , over the internet , but what we know based on whistleblower here or comments there or kind of paper here and there is that a lot of the data that was trained by ChatGPT or Midjourney , which is the visual software that I use in my research , is information around the internet . What happens is , because it's anglophone , so it uses mostly English-speaking information and it's mostly focused on Europe and the North sort of global North , which I don't like that term , but you know by like people that are European and European descendants . Most of the information comes from those places . It also uses , like even things like Reddit and obscure blogs .
Speaker 3So what happens is you're getting all these male-centric , chauvinistic , at times Europeanized views of the world . Again , it's very important for me personally not to say AI is bad or even that Europeans are bad or whites are bad . That's not what I'm saying . I'm saying that the AI tools they utilize , they center those people despite the existence of , you know , despite Europeans and really white people being a minority in numbers in the global , even though these countries are the leading countries in the world in many aspects , in the industrial aspects , every search or somewhere saying most of our data is Eurocentric , it was trained by males and those buyers will appear . If you want to get something different , you have to be more specific . And just a disclaimer so people understand .
Speaker 1In your article you wrote that this idea of a homogenized Jewish people is dangerous and , in your view , anti-Semitic . Can you speak more to that and the negative repercussions of presenting Jews in that way ?
Speaker 3Yeah , so the reason this idea is anti-Semitic is because I can't prove it , but it's very likely that , with the information we have , that the , the diaspora , are the main drivers of the narrative about Jewish people . Again , there's not a problem with that per se . I'm not combating that . That could be a different conversation . I'm more saying because that's the information out there , that's what these tools are utilizing to create the big Jews , and also because , historically , jewish men have had more opportunities to have their voice heard in many aspects .
Speaker 3And I think the dangers in that is that it shows us as Jewish people , as one specific type , with one specific gender , with one specific idea .
Speaker 3And if there's one thing that I know about being connected to the Jewish community for over two decades is that we are so different , we look so different , you know , not just physically . You know I met Black Jews , I met Indian Jews , I met Asian Jews . You know I met Asian Jews , I met disabled Jews , I met queer Jews and tall short , all sorts of people . And if that's the image that's being shared to the world , especially with Gen Zs , if there's a study that says 46% of Gen Zs rely on AI to tell them what to do or what to say . And if that's the image that they get , homogenization and stereotype can what to say ? And if that's the image that they get , homogenization and stereotype can lead to violence and violence can lead to harm to us People if they see us as these people that are Zionists , men , beaded , whatever it's , just like it kind of would lose our own self-identity , our idea of secrecy , and it becomes easier to harm us , to attack us .
Speaker 1I think and we've seen that happening recently , when there's been a lot of denial about Jewish people being Indigenous to the land of Israel and that's because many people just see Jews as Ashkenazi inverted commas white and they don't actually see the full picture .
Speaker 2Guido , we should mention that the research you've done has been conducted through showing these images to research participants . Showing these images to research participants . So tell us about how the participants responded to the images of these stereotypical Ashkenazi bearded Jewish men . What was the response ? Because this is the really intriguing part of your research .
Speaker 3What my research found is , as the bias embedded on AI tools , such as generated image systems , increases , so does the bias on the users increase . And I think this is a big danger because if people believe what they've seen , because there's an underperformization of AI tools , because they speak to me I have
Understanding AI Bias and Erasure
Speaker 3an AI , I talk to Chachi Pichu often , you know , had a proper conversation with it and unless , if you are really switched on and analytically thinking critical , you will believe it's a human that's telling you information or there's an anthropomorphization of it and people believe in those informations . And for me , what my research shows showing images to people is that they became more racist and more stereotypical and accepting . I don't see even a mitigation of it because the companies have no intention of retraining their materials and when they try to do mitigation , they might remove entire words that need to exist for historical context .
Speaker 3For example , the New York Times , this African-American artist . She was doing a work with enslaved ships and she couldn't Google the word enslaved because the word enslaved got disabled . So if you disable the word Holocaust , for example , because you wanted to protect Jews , let's say you want to do , for example , because you wanted to protect Jews , let's say you want to do a good thing , you want to protect Jews against people utilizing that , but then if you disable that word , you erase the entire history , and that's where AI erasure comes from . The mitigation won't solve anything . Disclaimer I think our government should take AI . As you know , we build roads . We should be building AI regulated by government and with support of institutions , universities , like we should have AI . That's an Australian AI , because it's like it could have , for example , people saying AI would say Australia began in 1788 . And it's like sure , but you should add European Australia started in 1788 .
Speaker 1I'm glad you touched on that , because I wanted to talk about something that you mentioned in another interview you did on I think it was the ABC when you mentioned the Alicia Keys Superbow Bowl incident .
Speaker 3Yes .
Speaker 1So just to enlighten listeners who aren't aware , it was last year's Super Bowl .
Speaker 3Last year's Super Bowl 2024 .
Speaker 12024 Super Bowl . Alicia Keys was the halftime performer . Those who were listening live would have heard that there was this lovely human moment where one of her notes was slightly off . It's fine . Everyone moved on . Then , after the event , the halftime performance was replayed . It was perfect . So whoever reconstructs that had used AI to fix her off note and then you spoke about that in the interview as some kind of AI erasure .
Speaker 3Yes . So AI erasure is a concept that's tangential for my research that's going to come in a paper that I'm writing currently and I've been writing articles in different places which is the idea that , because AI is so pervasive , the individuals , institutions , governments can use AI tools and generative images generated by want to erase their contributions to the Roman Empire . Stalin removed adversaries from photographs because he wants to erase those contributions to the adversaries , so that always existed . So AI erasure what happened with Elissa Keyes is that she missed a note and then used AI tools to recreate her voice , and what happens in these situations is that the public can't go to history . It's a lie , it never happened , and what would that be for the future ?
Speaker 1But you mentioned that AI should be regulated by governments . My Jewish fear is that what if we had a government that was racist against Jews and decided to erase the Holocaust from their AI and to have Holocaust denial or other forms of racism against Jews in Mizrahi , sephardi community denial ? Could that happen ?
Speaker 3Yes , it could happen and we've run the risk of it , but right now it's either the Australian government or a long mask and it's like , unless there's a grassroots movement , perhaps the worldwide Jewish community could create their own AI , but then again that could probably potentially be accused for being biased . Let's say , maybe for our people we would have to . Really , when I say governments , I shouldn't , I don't have the intellectual capacity or the skills capacity to advise on the solution , but what I'm saying is that someone that's responsible , that has a collective well-being as humans maybe the United Nations , unesco , I'm not sure who will create an AI tool that is collective , that has a contribution from different diversities , and it will , you know , and it accepts you know . I think the disclaimer is something that I would like to see . Despite our best efforts , it is possible that some perspectives were missing , and this is important to note when reading this information on track tpt okay , don't talk yourself down .
Speaker 1I think you do have the capacity to be an advisor on this committee . I'm thinking maybe it should not go through the united nations , because then there might be a bit of october 7 denial .
Speaker 2Oh , she threw shade on the united nations guido , I'm interested in what you make of how quickly things are changing and if we were possibly to fast forward five years , what is a positive case scenario with AI and its generation of images ? If we were to be optimistic , what could we see , maybe in five years' time ?
Speaker 1Good question , Dash it is a great question .
Speaker 3There's this collective in New Zealand who uses AI to recreate Maori language and find , because there's words that disappeared and then they find ways , because they fed the AI with Maori language . They've recreated , they've rebirthed this language . So AI is great and I think it will improve our productivity . We're still going to have to be creative , you know we still have to do , but AI can be useful for us , but with more contribution from diverse voices .
Speaker 2In the worst-case scenario , the stereotypes , the racist imagery just continues to get worse and worse .
Speaker 1I don't know if I want to know worst case scenario . It's too much .
Speaker 3No , I think it's just like . The worst case scenario
Future of AI: Worst and Best Cases
Speaker 3is what happened in the beginning of January this year , 2025 . Like Facebook , filters went down , you know , and then now anyone can say anything . So the worst case scenario is one we can have sponsorship research , so people , you charge on , charge TPT , but people get sponsored AI answers and you could drop the filters because right now there's filters mitigating racism , mitigating anti-semitism . You drop those . That's the worst case scenario . I don't want to put fear into people . I think we'll survive all the autocrats out there and we'll have Shabbat .
Speaker 3We'll eat challah five years from now . Ai is just going to be a tool . What was a tool ? Microsoft is a tool . Photoshop is a tool . Remember in the beginning of Photoshop ? Oh my God , people are making whatever , someone is skinny whatever . There was this panic and things settled in and people understand that these tools come true , you know , for marketing purposes . So I'm not an AI iconoclast .
Speaker 2No .
Speaker 3I'm an AI encourager , but what I'm saying is that we have to have critical thinking we have to have mitigation strategies Bad boundaries .
Speaker 2I'm envisaging a future , Guido , where I can go to AI and say create me an image of an Afro-Brazilian working in an internet cafe in Coco Cabana Beach and this Afro-Brazilian is Jewish . I'd like to see what you come up with , AI , and I get something approximating you , Guido . Ai doesn't kind of go no , can't compute , that doesn't make sense . A future scenario where you can create something that approximates the diversity , the multiplicity of what it means to be Jewish yeah .
Speaker 3And for me , like it's a privilege , you know , to be Jewish , it's reconnecting well to my soul , as my rabbis say , or a connection to who I want to be and who I am , and it's beautiful to be diverse . I have these beautiful kids who , you know , have African ancestry , brazilian indigenous ancestry , portuguese , possibly Jewish ancestry and born in Australia , and I think we should be grateful for it and I hope that the community is embracing and you know I feel welcome in the synagogues I've been in , I hope I continue to be and I hope that more people from other racial groups can be part of the Jewish community in .
Speaker 1Australia . Guido Mello , thank you so much for joining us on A Shame to Admit .
Speaker 3Thank you , it was my pleasure .
Episode Closing and Credits
Speaker 2That's it for another week .
Speaker 1You've been listening to . A Shame to Admit with me Tammy Sussman and executive director of TJI , dr Darsha Lawrence .
Speaker 2This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King , with theme music by Donovan Jenks .
Speaker 1If you like the podcast , leave a positive review , tell your people or encourage your third cousin's cousin to advertise on the show .
Speaker 2You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or by emailing ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau .
Speaker 1As always . Thank you so much for your support and look out for us next week . Thank you .
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