Ask F.E.N.N.E.C.™
F.E.N.N.E.C.™ (Friendly End-Times Navigation Nerdy Exegesis Companion) is an LLM (large language model) AI trained on my library of over 1,000+ hours. He’s trained on all my books, hundreds of quiz and discussion questions, video and audio content and everything in between. So he knows a lot!
He is restricted to just this library and he has 3 distinct purposes: librarian, discussion mode or quiz mode. He can look things up for you with precise timestamps and citations (when available), which helps with reference and study, because he can search the library quickly. If he doesn’t know the answer, he will tell you, and he will recommend that you rephrase or ask a different question. He can also answer questions for you in my style and perspective, which can help you go deeper on a given topic. So he’s great at answering your questions, and because he never sleeps — that makes my life way easier :)
Lastly, he is there to be your tutor (see what we did there?). That’s because F.E.N.N.E.C. is trained on hundreds of quiz and discussion questions. You can ask him to quiz you through multiple choice modes (normal or Fennec Fox Challenge) or you can even go deeper and put yourself in my shoes! How does that work? Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve starting a podcast or staying up until 1 in the morning editing videos. F.E.N.N.E.C. will ask you a question from the many hundreds in the discussion pool that listeners have asked me over the years (like “Dear Tudor, what’s your thoughts on XYZ?” or “How would you handle ABC?”) and compare your answer to mine, to see how you do. This is a great way to enhance your judgment and critical thinking skills.
At any point in any of these flows you can tell F.E.N.N.E.C. to switch to something else, like ask a topic question or have him find something for you. So again, his 3 modes are basically:
Librarian/Explainer mode: “Find where Tudor explains the soul / Sabbath / Sunday law” or “Explain Tudor’s view of X in plain English”
Discussion mode: Answer questions listeners have sent me
Quiz mode: Take quizzes on a variety of topics
F.E.N.N.E.C. can even do all of that in other languages! As long as you speak one of 28 major world languages, and your browser is set to a foreign language, he will detect your preferred language and interact with you in that language.
He’s not 100% perfect, because nothing is, so if there are any issues — make sure to let me know. In general, if he doesn’t know anything, he will just say so — or he may ask you to rephrase your question, or he may suggest a related topic that does have coverage. As time goes on, he will improve and learn more, because every new thing I do will be gobbled by F.E.N.N.E.C. so he can get harder, better, stronger and faster — to use a Daft Punk reference.
The goal for this project is to accelerate learning and to leverage the power of technology along with the countless hours I have put into creating a unique library of research on important topics. My intention is that you use this to learn, and ultimately to help others around you. It is designed for any level and great for individuals as well as groups, home bible study or home churches — as an adjunctive tool alongside other things you might use, like bible study programs or educational videos.
Now, even though F.E.N.N.E.C.™ is friendly and helpful, he’s not there for you to chat silly or off topic questions with, so please try to keep questions meaningful so the system stays fast and useful for everyone. He also costs (lots of) money to maintain, so remember that and keep your conversations productive.
Because this is a paid resource, you will be asked to login. If you are not a paid member, you can always subscribe to access this benefit. A different platform handles the sign-on for F.E.N.N.E.C. — so even if you’re signed into Substack, you will have to sign in to use the chat. As long as you don’t delete your cookies, it should remember you when you return. Make sure to disable any ad blockers on the page.
I encourage the use of this tool so that you can learn faster and leverage all the work I have done over the years. It is a way for me to help you without having to be there, and that to me is a marvel of God. If you want to support my work and find this project useful, you can always donate or purchase a USB library of my content to have offline.
For my statement of faith, you can go here.
If you’d like to know more about me, you can check out my testimony here.
F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)
QUESTION:
Why did you start this project? What motivated you to do this?
ANSWER:
I was motivated to start F.E.N.N.E.C. because I am passionate about the truth and about learning. I’ve created a prodigious library of unique and valuable works, and AI is the perfect tool to help someone navigate that library so they can be as effective as possible in learning the material, and also use it to help others. Without this tool, looking for information or searching the immense amount of content is a difficult task and often depends on me being available to answer questions. But by having a resource like F.E.N.N.E.C. — this is overcome easily and anyone at any time can find the answer to their questions or reference my material, like having a private and custom search engine just for the library. But besides this, F.E.N.N.E.C. is not just a fancy librarian, he is also a powerful study companion. My motivation has always been to support people in becoming leaders, growing their home churches or groups and developing skills and knowledge. F.E.N.N.E.C. addresses all of these goals because he can be used individually or by groups. He can be your study companion and help you become a real Berean, or he can be an engaging and fun companion to your home church or group bible study — where one person puts the phone on the table and everyone takes turns asking questions through voice mode. Either way, he has a wide array of use cases and the end goal is always edification of the body of Christ.
QUESTION:
Why is F.E.N.N.E.C. behind a paywall? Why do I need to log in/pay to use this service?
ANSWER:
AI chatbot services require a lot of infrastructure and monthly maintenance, to the order of several thousand dollars per year to have a high quality, useful service. Originally I actually wanted to make F.E.N.N.E.C. a free service, but that’s just not feasible. I was ignorant of the true costs involved with putting like this together, not to mention the uncounted costs in time because all of this had to be setup. Because of this, it is only feasible to offer this service as a benefit to paying members. As a member you only pay $5 per month or $50 per year, and as long as you have an active membership you will have access to. The service is behind a login to prevent abuse and to make sure only paid members use it, but the login is a simple password-less entry (6 digit code sent to your email).
QUESTION:
Can I use F.E.N.N.E.C. if I have a free trial or comped/gifted subscription?
ANSWER:
Free trials have access to practically every benefit on Substack because that’s what they’re for. They do not give you access to F.E.N.N.E.C. because technically it is an entirely separate system. The ledger for Substack members is communicated to another ledger service that gates content, which is then installed on a custom landing page outside of Substack with a script. In normal English, Substack is where my content lives and all of that is handled there. So getting a free trial unlocks all the locked pages that are for paying members, including the page to access the online library. But this is different because of the way it has to be setup, and as a result it has an entirely separate infrastructure. It looks related to Substack, but it’s not — it’s grafted in with code and systems. So, because free trials are not (yet) a paid membership, and F.E.N.N.E.C. has ongoing costs, and the infrastructure is totally different — there is no way for me to automatically allow people who get free trials into the other ledger. It would have to be done manually, and I’m just not going to do that because it would take a lot of time — time that simply isn’t justified. F.E.N.N.E.C. also has monthly expenses, so overall I just decided that this would be for already paid members as the simplest solution. A membership is very affordable, so if you feel that you’ve received enough value to become a paying member, once you do you will automatically get access to F.E.N.N.E.C.. For comped or gifted memberships it’s slightly different. The process to add you to the member roster (held elsewhere than Substack) is also manual, so you will have to email me at tudor@danceoflife.com so that I can confirm your membership and add you to the other ledger. Because these are paid memberships, they will have access to the chatbot service — but they are NOT automatically added to the ledger when they are created, so please reach out because the login screen will just return an error that it didn’t find your email.
QUESTION:
Will this ever be free or available without a subscription?
ANSWER:
No, because costs for AI will always exist and those costs are not statistically insignificant. To maintain a project like this costs several thousand dollars per year — and that’s with me doing all of the work rather than hiring a developer or team. Unless that drastically reduces, to a few hundred per year max (which is unlikely any time soon and probably ever), it will always be required to be a paying member to use this service.
QUESTION:
Isn’t Artificial Intelligence evil? Why are you using AI when you warn about it in your videos?
ANSWER:
AI is a tool like anything else. I have never said that using AI is inherently evil or sinful, but rather warned that it will be used eventually to enforce the morality of the Beast. This is important, because many people believe AI is the image of the Beast or that microchips or jib jabs are the mark of the Beast, both of which are wrong. Learning who the Beast really is will make you understand what the ultimate use for AI will be, and that helps you detach from the world while being in it and using it for the time. We know these things will be used against us one day, and once that happens we also know that time will be very short. Remember that God is sovereign over all things, and that God has also ordained things like AI for the purpose of spreading knowledge — just like bible apps, computers, phones, YouTube and any other useful tool that has come about (and that has also been used for evil). AI is very powerful and can help someone learn exponentially faster if used the right way, which is my entire goal with this project. F.E.N.N.E.C. is trained only on my content and is not allowed to make things up or improvise doctrines, bible verses, teachings, etc. nor use the Internet to search if he doesn’t know the answer. So the potential for misuse or abuse is extremely low, while the value for education is maximal.
QUESTION:
What can F.E.N.N.E.C. do?
ANSWER:
F.E.N.N.E.C. can look things up for you like a glossary and give you timestamps (if available) and URLs (if available) of where I talk about a particular point. He can also explain a topic or question in my voice as if I was answering your question. What “in my voice” means is in my writing voice, my perspective, my style, my way of thinking. He is not talking to you using my actual audio voice. If you do select “Voice Mode” or have him speak an answer to you, he will use a friendly assistant style AI generated voice. Lastly, F.E.N.N.E.C. can also quiz you multiple choice questions, or even discussion questions that listeners have asked me over the years, and you can compare your answer to mine. Quiz Mode is a great and unique feature for F.E.N.N.E.C. because it transforms him from being just a glorified glossary search engine into a true study companion. You can go between multiple choice mode (where there are “easy” and “hard” questions from all the quiz data over the years, including the Fennec Fox Challenge quiz) or you can drift into discussion mode, put yourself in my shoes and put your wits to the test to see how your answers do. If a case intrigues you, you can switch back into librarian/explainer mode to dive deeper, then go back to quiz mode and have a very satisfying learning loop either by yourself or with your friends and family.
QUESTION:
Why should I use F.E.N.N.E.C.?
ANSWER:
Because it is a valuable tool for your learning. You can get immediate answers to your questions, look something up or do deeper research on a topic. Or you can put your knowledge to the test and get quizzed. F.E.N.N.E.C. can act as a tutor, a librarian or a teacher, and he can shift seamlessly with you between these modes depending on what your goal is for the day. Alongside other tools you may have, like a bible reading app or bible software like e-Sword, he can help you study the word and learn faster than ever, which is the goal.
QUESTION:
Is F.E.N.N.E.C. difficult to use or does it require technical knowledge?
ANSWER:
No, not more than any other average thing you do on your phone. You simply go to the website (fennec.danceoflife.com) and login using the password-less login. It will send you a 6 digit code, which you then plug into the box and you are logged in. A chat bubble will appear at the bottom right and you can click on it and begin talking to F.E.N.N.E.C.. You can ask him anything and see where it goes, but usually a good way to start would be to say “Explain XYZ” or “Quiz me”.
QUESTION:
Why did you pick the name F.E.N.N.E.C. and why did you pick the fox as a mascot for this?
ANSWER:
I have used the Fennec fox mascot for several years. Originally it began as an inside joke from some end times related videos I was doing. For some reason I thought of the Fennec fox as a great metaphor of how much discernment people need to have in these last days, because the Fennec fox has huge ears in comparison to its body. Eventually the joke stuck and became a running theme on the show. F.E.N.N.E.C. is a continuation of that theme, and his name (Friendly End-Times Navigation Nerdy Exegesis Companion) is pretty appropriate for what he does. He is a companion in these last days that can help you get nerdy with God’s word and my library, and he’s super friendly.
QUESTION:
If we get stuck or have a problem with F.E.N.N.E.C. what do we do?
ANSWER:
AI isn’t perfect and it can make mistakes or choke every so often, so please report all issues to me at tudor@danceoflife.com. Ideally send me a log of the chat (copy and paste it into a TXT file or something similar) and your breakdown of what happened. This includes the bot choking on an answer when you expected it to give one, giving you false information or any other kind of error. I’ve done a lot of work to ensure F.E.N.N.E.C. behaves himself, but you know what they say: you can take the fox out of the desert but you can’t take the desert out of the fox!