Buddhism, the human mind and artificial intelligence (AI)
This article will briefly describe the nature of the human mind through experiential learning in vipassana meditation and how AI would interact positively and negatively with it.
Humans and other animals are made of three constituents, namely the physical body, mind, and memory. While the physical body is made of matter and energy, the mind is a non-physical functional component. There are five sensors located in the physical body, namely the eye, ear, nose, tongue and the entire body, that capture the external environment.
These pieces of captured information in the form of visual, audio, smell, taste and touch are taken up by the mind as thoughts, one at a time. The mind processes these and subsequently stores them as memories. This memory, in turn, becomes the second source of thoughts.
The third source of thoughts is the physical body itself in the form of aches and pains, thirst, hunger, the urge to urinate and defecate, and so on.
The mind has an operating system (OS), unique to each individual. This OS selects what to accept from what falls onto the sensors and subsequently processes and stores in the memory. This system has natural algorithms for retrieving such stored information, advanced decision-making, learning, adjusting reasoning, etc. No two individuals are identical in their OS, so diverse, complex, and covert are these systems in humans. The OS is linked and influenced by the trans-migration of the mind across many births. This fact is often debated, though.
Humans capturing information from five sensors, processing those in the mind, and storing it in memory for future use is very similar to how a computer works. Computers have input devices such as a keyboard, mouse, camera, scanner, and joystick working as sensors in humans. Processors do a job similar to the human mind, and hard discs and other storage devices to memory.
AI is the technological capability of simulating the human mind and intelligence using computers and applications. These capabilities include learning, reasoning, perceiving, problem solving, and language use, to name a few. AI can take some burden off humans and perform certain functions faster and more accurately. It will also perform functions that average humans may not be able to do. The circumstances have created a huge and undisputed place for AI to create a better material world for people.
Similarities and differences
AI systems can simulate the operating system of humans. However, the diversity of the OS among individuals cannot be simulated easily as this has programming transmigrated across an innumerable number of births to come to the present shape, too detailed to be programmed by an outside agency. The method of tracking between births is not yet possible with cognition-based modern sciences. Capturing information from the sensors, memory, and hardware of the physical body for routine functioning is programmed and re-programmed across many births and is still continuously changing through algorithms that are naturally formed and deleted on an ongoing basis.
Details of the physical, chemical and electrical composition of the human body are partly determined by the mind during organ formation in the intra uterine life. Hence, the mind is instrumental in building the physical body. On the other hand, the mind can be stopped completely while the vital functions remain in idling mode by using a method expounded by the Buddha. This gives a one hundred percent stress-free state called nirvana to those who can achieve this level of mental absorption. Nirvana is also associated with a profound self-analytical insight. Whether AI and computers can simulate these complex functions to that level to outsmart the human mind is extremely doubtful.
AI creates systems of generating information and automating functions in addition to nature’s autonomous systems. Such a generated environment can stand between the natural environment and human perception, giving a doctored and unreal picture to a person in place of reality, which is already evident in society. It takes a person in a direction diagonally opposite to the non-attachment path that the Buddha advised.
Whether this is for the betterment of human wellbeing, or for desire-driven more political, economic, and socio-cultural agendas needs a broad discussion. The dialogue on AI ethics is already ongoing and will be essential for the responsible use of AI to minimise its potential harm.
AI has the capability to replicate a significant portion of human functions. This enables the realisation of materialistic achievements that were previously beyond human capabilities, catering to humanity’s ever-evolving desires. This is an overexpansion of the materialistic world from which we are encouraged to detach in pursuit of stable inner peace, happiness, contentment, and wisdom offered by the teachings of the Buddha. Whether the human race should over-depend on an artificial system that surrenders to the inevitable destiny of impermanence one day or be wiser should be seriously considered.
(The writer is attached to the Center for Meditation Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo)
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