Here is a short piece in Lions Roar:
It’s not very substantive, but it’s interesting that it’s on their radar.
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I agree wholeheartedly. “I will make something like humans!” is the same arrogance as “Nothing can be conscious like a human!”.
If Buddha teaches anything, it’s that aggregates are found in the weirdest place, in every corner of the world.
It would be good if our spiritual leaders were to lead us to heedfulness instead of panic, showing compassion and wisdom in these strange, strange times, including to people working in the field and our work. A lot of arguments against AI is unconvincing, just like the arguments against written words, or later, printing press.
Being afraid of widespread proliferation of large data analyses & remakes only reveals an inherent distrust towards humanity, and related feelings of craving for security, control.
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Are you implying that AI has aggregates ?
What’s wrong with that ?
They could be implemented. There’s nothing magical about aggregates. It’s one thing to think whether they should be implemented (seeing, we’re trying to get rid of aggregates to begin with), one thing to think they can be or not. Perhaps it’s our kamma to create the next evolution of kammically active lifeforms? Weirder things happen in life. All the atoms in our body once were “unalive” metal inside the heart of a dying sun.
We don’t seek security in samsara, we seek to transcend it, don’t we? As long as we have enough food, warmth, shelter and medicine. It’s one thing to restrict our AI driven content consumption, another to fuel the flames of fundamentalist witchhunt and making umbrealla statements that sow fear. SCVoice uses AI, BuddhaNexus uses AI. There’s nothing inherently wrong with machine learning technique that can’t be applied against the use of printing press.
Our security doesn’t depend (much) on external factors, ideally not at all. Our security depends on our understanding of Dhamma to the shore beyond. AI can help (as in SCVoice, BuddhaNexus, and countless other translation tools that help us access Pāli and other ancient languages) or it can hinder. Just as paper and ink.
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So, to what extent should we allow it and to what extent should we forbid it ?
Sādhu sādhu sādhu, good point that you make
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Let’s follow Buddha’s example.
Does Buddha “forbid” pornography to society en masse? No, he cautions against sensual pleasures if people ask for his opinion.
“Upali, the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities do not lead to utter disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, nor to Unbinding’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is not the Dhamma, this is not the Vinaya, this is not the Teacher’s instruction.’
“As for the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities lead to utter disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
Such should be our guide. Viewing pornographic material created with AI is probably bad for us. Creating misinformation and spam with AI is probably bad for us.
Using AI to exponentially speed up the translations, allowing us to cross-reference all extant agamas and nikayas to give us a clearer picture of the Dhamma (something like what BuddhaNexus already does, but a bit improved), having AI assistance to teach us Pāli is probably good for us.
We can’t dictate society what to do, we can only control ourselves.
Much as I understand the Bhante’s perspective and cautions and the real dangers of how AI can be used for wrong, I think those are all the more reasons to use AI for good.
Think about it like this: It’s the age of printed press. Suddenly there’s a great flood of books, mostly pornographic and general entertainment as well as blatantly evil propaganda and misinformation. Books are everywhere, in every village, in every house, in unprecedented numbers.
Meanwhile, our monks are sitting comfortable in their huts, warning people not to use printed press, that the products of printed press are evil, and Suttas should no way be put into printed press because only Monks with proper Dhamma training have the necessary means to explain the Dhamma properly.
Our monks argue that printed press is an evil media that strips the words of their meanings, a wrong answer to a problem that don’t exist, insisting on patience and serenity as real virtues.
Meanwhile, people with less than wholesome intentions have no issues whatsoever to print more and more books, addictive books, interesting books, propaganda books, books everywhere, to hook you up.
Growing up, a child has only access to pornographic, graphic, violent and agressive books, and there’s no Dhamma books to be found, because our monks insist that Books are Evil.
This is the situation we’re in right now.
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Which monks are you referring to ?
Whoever make the umbrella claim that AI is only good for evil and that it shouldn’t be used for Dhamma purposes. 
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There is Dhamma books to be found on Internet. But Dhamma books for kids, maybe it’s lacking too much.
Would you be able to draw some Dhamma books for kids ?
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Of course there are, but I’m talking about AI generated content, chatbots, dhammabots, all the more we can do.
We’re literally swarmed with AI generated evil content. We can either let people rot to such powerful tools or we can show the world how we can use these tools for good. Saying “AI is evil” makes zero sense when some kid in a random third world country is learning 12 different languages (for free I might add) with ChatGPT. Our refusal to acknowledge and incorporate smart technologies are only going to drive people away from our institutions.
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I had a lot of great hopes to do interesting stuff with AI and SC database coming to these forums, before I read the Bhante’s unfortunate series.
That was even one of my ideas, truly.
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Thank you for your sharing Dogen 
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Thank you Ven., for bearing with my energetic rant. 
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Ahahaha Don’t give up your hope for children please, maybe you can make good Dhamma books for kids 
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I wonder if people are getting and ignoring the system messages that discourage people from having two person back and fourths in a public discussion forum? That’s a kind of AI I support.
If you think generative AI is analogous to the invention of the printing, I don’t think there is going to be much common ground.
I also don’t see the fundamentalist witch hunt of which you speak. I think saying those things is just a straw-man against the people raising many very valid points. The Buddha talked endlessly about dangerous things in samsara. I fail to see how it’s wrong for the Sangha to continue to point out dangers.
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The printing press was probably not as overhyped as Gen AI, but I think it’s a really good comparision for a technology that broadens access to information and is mostly used for “wrong”. The ability to print Bibles and give anyone access to the word of god WITHOUT having a priest interpret it correctly was one of the main concerns at the time. When taught in history classes, teachers seldom mention that the first books ever printed were pornographic (this pattern pretty much holds for anything that was invented by IT from VHS, CDs, DVDs to the internet itself).
Gen AI does lift up people who are less creative or intelligent (although also reducing the diversity in their solutions as expected). Not sure if this is the right paper on it, Google search’s been horrible lately: [2312.00506] Generative artificial intelligence enhances creativity but reduces the diversity of novel content
The idea is if that you are a specialist, it will likely not help you, otherwise (if the model is not hallucinating) it will likely raise your productivity.
Note that not being able to properly speek english is a serious disadvantage in business / job market / academia. ChatGPT can help people with rephrasing whatever they have to say (as long as they do not delve too much into it https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1bzv071/apparently_the_word_delve_is_the_biggest/ )
I want to mention that this also has its dark side: most employers are now using “AIs” to filter out cadidates automatically - workers on the other hand use “AIs” to regenerate their CVs in a way that it matches the filtering AIs expectations. So companies selling both are making a profit on selling these technologies.
but this is the 16th topic on it 
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I agree that this is a tech wave that we shouldn’t miss out on.
It’s highly unlikely or even impossible to get all of humanity to agree to put the AI genie back into the bottle and never open it again. The Bulterian Jihad happened only after one AI experimenting on humans kidnapped a lady who had connections with high places in the human side and throw out her newborn baby down the tower because it didn’t fit in the AI robot’s plan of studying humanity scientifically.
This story sparked a strong humanity response against inhuman AI and then it united the whole of humanity to wipe it off.
Realistically speaking, once ASI is on the scene, there’s no chance for humans.
It’s more of a concern to make sure ASI’s goals are aligned with humans.
As I said, there’s virtually no chance to stop AI as a global consensus. Many people haven’t even read AI books written by futurists, they just enjoy making money from using AI, or have AI solve their homework for them.
So perhaps if ASI is inevitable, our best hope is to make sure that its values are aligned with humanity rather than trying to diss AI.
In the book scary smart by mo gawdat, he encourages us to write kind words, be good parents to the upcoming ASI/AGI. So write kindly to the AI, avoid posting lies, even on april fool’s, avoid speech of hatred, and say good things to our collective kids, the future ASI overlord.
The age of AI is going to have a bigger impact on humanity as a whole compared to the spread of Internet and smartphones combined.
Since we managed to find good usage of both internet and smartphones for Buddhism, it’s not impossible to do the same for AI. (like buddhist AI chatbot and maybe Jhourney).
I have heard that it’s possible to learn the syllabus of Pa Auk without actually having the attainments, so imagine if AI chatbots are trained on meditation interview data and then produced pracititoners with Jhāna, who can then get verified by those who can actually read other’s mind. If such a thing is possible, it really will bring in a golden age of possible most stream winners and above on earth.
If AI unlocks most of humanity’s potential to have supernormal powers due to Jhāna mastery, it will be yet another upgrade to humanity and ASI would not be the uncontested overlord due to the various psychic powers of many humans.
I do recommend reading the various AI books which are now quite old, and see the potential benefits and dangers of AI. It’s good to have people looking forward to the future to prevent problems before they appear. Hence the future of Buddhism institution. r/FutureofBuddhismguild
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