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This unusual Israeli podcast covers everything from sentient AI to extending the human lifespan
If an alien spacecraft landed in Dr. Avi Loeb’s backyard tomorrow, he would readily step on, leave his family behind and take off to discover the great beyond.
Obviously, he’d be giving up a lot, but it’s for an essential cause, he says: Humans need to explore the possibilities for human life beyond earth.
“We know the sun will burn up the surface of the earth within a billion years,” he says. “We won’t be able to stay here.”
Loeb, an Israeli-American astrophysicist at Harvard University, shared these thoughts recently in a podcast conversation with Dr. Tal Patalon, head of Kahn Sagol Maccabi (KSM), the Research and Innovation Center of Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services. Loeb was Patalon’s guest on an episode of KSM’s popular English-language podcast, “A Matter of Life and Death.”
Now in its third season (and first in English), the podcast features physician-researcher Patalon in wide-ranging conversations about life, the future and the human experience with leaders and innovative thinkers from a broad variety disciplines and fields of knowledge — from the former head of the Mossad to musicians and professors. Patalon elicits insights and showcases her multidisciplinary approach to her work at KSM, and she also has a way of getting at the core of her guests’ personalities and belief systems.
“These are open conversations, not interviews,” Patalon said. “It’s all about relationships and learning from these people. These are really special individuals who help broaden your perspective and serve as inspiration for innovation.”
KSM itself conducts various types of health research, helping researchers and entrepreneurs with its massive clinical and medical data as well as deep understanding of technology and artificial intelligence. KSM also operates the largest biobank in Israel, with over 900,000 biological samples, enabling partnerships with companies in genetic research and support for a range of Big Data projects.
Patalon’s podcast embodies the out-of-the-box thinking that guides KSM’s approach to research and innovation. Her recent conversation with Loeb covered the AI revolution, extending human longevity, and Loeb’s work at The Galileo Project for the Systematic Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts.
Loeb leads the Galileo Project’s search for physical objects associated with extraterrestrial technological equipment. He and his team use sophisticated instruments to image and collect data on objects in the sky that the government and astronomers have deemed outliers. The goal is to determine whether they are natural phenomena or technological in origin and from other planets.
“I am looking for relics of [extraterrestrial] civilizations that have perhaps predated us and sent out gadgets and probes to explore space,” Loeb said. “They would have had enough to have filled up the solar system with a million probes. Tech gadgets can survive the harsh environments of space.”
Loeb and his team identified an interstellar meteorite that collided with Earth off Papua New Guinea in 2014. Based on the speed of the object, Loeb determined that it came from outside the solar system, and the Department of Defense supported his assertion.
“It exploded. We are planning an expedition to scoop the ocean floor to collect the fragments,” Loeb said. “We know it was tougher than iron, so we will examine the fragments to see if the object was natural or an artificial alloy that could be a fragment of a spacecraft.”
Avi Loeb, an Israeli-American astrophysicist at Harvard University, talks about artificial intelligence, extraterrestrial life and technology as the featured guest on a recent podcast episode of “A Matter of Life and Death.” (Courtesy of KSM)
Loeb told Patalon how his work has made him think that humans are not necessarily that smartest and most accomplished species in the universe, and that modesty is in order.
“We are no smarter than the mean of the universe, no matter what we have accomplished. We have nothing to brag about,” he said.
Patalon agreed: “We are arrogant. Our world is tiny and fragile and we are destroying it. We should cherish what we have.”
However, Patalon disagreed with Loeb when it comes to how far the AI revolution should go. Loeb believes we are close to the point where AI will take over many roles in human life.
“There will be sentient AI systems. They will converse among themselves and create their own communities. A new consciousness will emerge. Death will be like unplugging a computer from a wall, so in the future it will be illegal to do so,” he said.
From Patalon’s perspective as an active clinician specializing in family and emergency medicine, she is certain that AI will become integrated into the human body within five to 10 years. She expects to see augmented humans with constant glucose monitors and vitals-monitoring chips implanted under the skin.
“And 3-D printing of organs is developing fast,” she observed.
But unlike Loeb, Patalon believes that extending human longevity to an extreme degree is not the goal of AI. Rather, there is a consciousness above material reality, and a spirituality and soul beyond technology. She worries about the separation, depression and addiction associated with technology and wants to see more efforts put into helping people learn how to handle technological evolution. We can’t let AI run away with things and negate human consciousness and positive relationships, she said.
“A high-quality life means learning how to love unconditionally. That is the human future,” Patalon said. “Otherwise we are like animals.”
At the end of each episode of “A Matter of Life and Death,” Patalon asks her guest whether they think about death and what they would like their epitaph to be. Loeb thinks that people waste time and resources memorializing themselves by building monuments on Earth. Not particularly attached to his body, he said, he’d be be eager to download his consciousness to an avatar astronaut.
“I hope we will figure out how to live forever, but if I have to die, I would be happy for it to happen somewhere other than Earth,” he said. “On Mars there is no bureaucracy to suppress innovation.”
To listen to this and other podcast episodes, click here.
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The post This unusual Israeli podcast covers everything from sentient AI to extending the human lifespan appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen
(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on Israel to rein in its attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure, marking a rare note of caution from a Republican lawmaker who has said he helped push the United States to join Israel in waging war against Iran.
In a post on X on Sunday, Graham praised Israel for its role in the war before adding that “there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.”
“In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select,” continued Graham. “Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”
Graham’s post linked to an Axios article that reported that the United States was alarmed by Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted 30 Iranian fuel depots. On Monday, U.S. gas prices rose to their highest levels since 2024.
The warning from Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump and staunch supporter of Israel, comes days after the Republican hawk told the Wall Street Journal that he had played a key role in urging Trump to strike Iran.
Prior to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Graham made several trips to Israel where he met with members of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he said he coached on how to lobby Trump to strike Iran.
“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the newspaper.
On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.
“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” wrote Graham in a post on X Monday. “Question – why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
The post Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen appeared first on The Forward.
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Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism
(JTA) — Belgian officials are investigating an explosion in front of a synagogue in Liège early Monday as a possible act of terrorism.
The explosion, which took place at 4 a.m., damaged the door of the historic neo-Romanesque synagogue and blew out the windows of multiple buildings across the street. No injuries were reported.
A range of Belgian politicians, including the prime minister and the mayor of Liège, characterized the explosion as act of antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally,” Prime Minister Bart de Wever said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in Liege and across the country.”
The explosion comes amid a surge of concern about possible attacks by agents associated with the Iranian regime, against which the United States and Israel launched a war last week. Iran has a long record of supporting attacks on Jewish targets abroad, including two bombings in the 1990s in Argentina that killed more than 100 people at the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center. Now, with Iran being pummeled at home, watchdogs are warning that it might lash out through its Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, responsible for attacks abroad.
Azerbaijan said Friday that it had foiled multiple terror attacks planned by Iranian agents on Jewish sites. In London, four men were arrested last week for allegedly spying on the Jewish community for Iran, with the intent of planning attacks against the community. And a string of shootings at synagogues in Toronto has ignited concern in Canada, too.
Iranian agents have taken aim at non-Jewish targets, too. On Friday, a Pakistani man who prosecutors said had been directed by Iran’s IRGC was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The attack in Liège, in the primarily French-speaking Wallonia province, comes amid a range of recent developments that have unsettled Belgian Jews, who number approximately 30,000. They include antisemitic carnival caricatures in the city of Aalst; a ban on ritual slaughter preventing the local production of kosher meat; and an ongoing row between U.S. and Belgian officials over Jewish circumcision practices. The attack also follows a 2014 shooting in which a gunman associated with the Islamic State, a rival to Iran’s Islamic Republic, shot four people to death at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
A spokesperson for the Liège police described the effects to the area as “only material damage” to the 1899 building. Rabbi Joshua Nejman told local media that he was hoping that security footage would reveal the perpetrator.
“I’m going to try to calm my heart, because it is beating faster and faster this morning,” said Nejman, who said he had been at the synagogue for 25 years.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up,” Eitan Bergman, vice president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organisations in Belgium, told Reuters. “Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock.”
Liege’s mayor, Willy Demeyer, praised the synagogue community to RBTF, Belgium’s French-language national broadcaster. He added, “We cannot allow foreign conflicts to be imported into our city.”
The post Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism appeared first on The Forward.
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The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2025
In honor of The Algemeiner‘s 12th annual gala, we are proud to present our “J100” list — 100 individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life over the past year.