Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the point of view of a Buddhist monk

During my participation at the 2nd Digital Freedom Festival (DFF) in Riga, Latvia. I was interviewed by a journalist from www.tuvuma.lv about the Artificial Intelligence (AI) from my perspective. Well, it’s a perspective of a Buddhist monk and a technology lover as the same person. Let’s take a look at it.

What are your biggest concerns regarding AI?

The humans using and creating AI need to have morale guidelines. If AI fall into hands of bad people, that creates a lot of chaos. But, if AI falls into hands of good people, that also brings a lot of benefits for the society.

So far, the new technologies have often been used by governments to increase their power.

I agree. However, the technology is something neutral. It depends on the users – weather they want to create benefits for others or to manipulate others. I totally believe that technology is something natural.

What can we practically do starting today to ensure the movement will go to positive direction?

This is what I’m trying to do by teaching people to meditate. When you meditate, a mind becomes clearer. The chance of acting more clearly increases. I’ve been teaching this to different companies, organizations and governing bodies. I hope it will create more peace in society.

What else is important right now?

Some form of AI is part of our life for a few years already. It’s not completely new. However, the machine learning is the new thing – when machines learn how to become more intelligent. Machine learning must be moderated. Currently it can be used for basic things. Unfortunately, there are cases when machine learning has been used for detecting people faces and for blackmailing people. At the moment we are still far from the era of machines conquering the world. So, I believe if the programmers practiced being more peaceful, that would lead to better results for society.

Will we be able to make an artificial entity with a soul?

I believe we will be able to make something very close, but not the same. Eventually, the soul is a gift from the universe. It can not be artificially created. Even if we created someone that is very close to human being, we would not enjoy living with the robot.

Interviewed by Lauris Krolis

Lauris Krolis works for Tuvuma but he also makes a blog of interesting people here as well.

This is my opinion about the AI seen from the point of view of a Buddhist monk. What about yours? You can also share your idea and we can discuss below.