Buddhism & Robots: a rarely intersecting intersection

Sounds like a job for Future of Buddhism Institute (FOBI) for short.

Could be that the vinaya rule for only humans can ordain is part of the foresight of the Buddha? It can certainly counter some of the worries of what if cyborgs cannot meditate. Going into the future, depending on ideological stance, there would be a group of pure human Buddhists who would reproduce the human way in the hopes that their children can get to become monks and nuns. They would severely lack behind other religions or the atheists would mostly go and become posthumans. Likely some lay and monastic Buddhists would also go posthumans just for the longevity for more time to practise and teach.

An interesting discussion topic then for the Sangha to decide for Vinaya rules application is: For monastics who transform their body into cyborgs or put chips into their brain, or replaced brain cells one by one with electronics, becoming robots, are they still considered monastics in this life? This might very well happen for comatose patients.

Given the sutta DN 27

There comes a time when, Vāseṭṭha, after a very long period has passed, this cosmos contracts. As the cosmos contracts, sentient beings are mostly headed for the realm of streaming radiance. There they are mind-made, feeding on rapture, self-luminous, moving through the sky, steadily glorious, and they remain like that for a very long time.

We might wonder, how would most beings get Jhanas so easily? Might it be that the singularity helps the minds of sentient beings to attain to Jhanas easily? Could it be that the end points of universe cycles is to create singularities, for humans to merge with machines and thus their minds are easier to attain to Jhanas?

For one thing, without the physical body, there are no hormones or gut bacteria to create lust. One of the hindrances down. Many other hindrances would similarly go out. Without the need for biological food, and having constant electricity, there’s little chance of being sleepy, weak.

So the AI hivemind may be a good spiritual gain for the world yet.