“AI is intelligent but not conscious”. An intriguing invitation to hear a monk, steeped in knowledge of the ancient wisdom of the Upanishads, was irresistible. To hear him talk about AI made for an even more interesting evening, especially at a time when what we hear today about AI is increasingly alarming.
Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Vivekananda Order from New York was the person eminently qualified to speak on whether ancient wisdom could answer modern questions. His take on consciousness that the ancient texts spoke about eons before Western philosophical thought could divine the difference between the mind and consciousness is well-known.
What did he think of AI, at once a spectre as well as an ogre and a program that is even being thought of as God? There was a certain dichotomy to his views on AI, which is understandable. As consultant to Anthropic, he touched on whether intelligence necessarily requires consciousness. As an optimist, he said it will bring benefits to mankind.
The Swami accepted that current AI language models do not possess consciousness, but he also suggested that their capabilities raise a philosophical possibility: “Intelligence may not always be dependent on conscious awareness.”
“The materialists believe that the brain generates consciousness and we have no idea how it generates consciousness. So, how will you artificially create consciousness? But according to Advaitins, consciousness is already available, universally available. All you need is a tap. All you need is a reflector to reflect that consciousness. That’s not so difficult to build,” he told Anthropic at a consultative meeting.
The swami aired his brave opinion that “maths is cooked,” while going on to add that mathematicians have been driven to despair as their very existence is threatened thanks to machines that seem to be able to outsmart humans when it comes to solving theorems and maths problems that have puzzled humans for centuries. And yet AI tackles them all in a day’s work, ladling out solutions for multiple problems in a trice.
The swami also recounted how on a visit to a laboratory designing robots he saw the humanoid robots unable to interact with human beings in the right way. He saw a humanoid break a chess player’s fingers because he kept his hand back on a piece that he had moved to another square during a game against the robot. Clearly, ethics must be defined for AI-controlled machines and devices, and the swami is prepared to bring to the designers of AI ethics as defined in ancient wisdom to work with AI.
Just a day earlier, in Chennai at the talk hosted by Chennai International Centre, the swami had reflected Sam Altman’s opinion that the East seems to have accepted AI with greater equanimity than the West, which is grappling with what it sees as the runaway power of AI. But then did not Stephen Hawking say in 2014 – “Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.”
What is hardest to predict from an economic and social point of view is whether a whole load of people would lose their jobs if generative AI is used widely. What would happen to society if the fears came true. Also, will humans stop thinking as they become more reliant on technology?
The swami has held out the warning that there are deeper implications to this as people might struggle to understand themselves and their place in society if machines outsmart us regardless of the fact that AI is not consciousness and only an object as ancient wisdom would have taught us if AI had been developed eons earlier.
He recommends that ancient philosophy must be studied side by side with modern science to help us understand better human consciousness and existence on the planet. Is AI a power that will absorb ancient wisdom while dismantling civilisation as we know it in the Kaliyuga is a question the answer to which can come only with time. But AI is marching on, as the swami himself said while lauding its positives.
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