AI and the Buddha
A friend pulled out a picture of her three children and I noticed that all of them had eerily delighted smiles on their faces. I asked her how she got them to all smile at the same time and she said, “I did it through Chat GPT”. On her wall is the image of this happy, perfect family who looked like they just got off the polar express movie. I’m watching friends enjoy the latest AI toys with wonder. One friend got free medical advice without having to see a doctor, one an airbrushed image of herself 40 years younger in a leather jacket that convinced her that she would look like this if she bought the jacket, one a well- organized dharma talk with charts put in logical order that was devoid of the juicy human errors that make a teaching so compelling. Some even find an AI boyfriend who doesn’t snore or have any past trauma to deal with. I get it. It’s fun to enter raw data into a computer and be given a clean, ideal version of reality, a reality of certainty where messiness, blemishes and nuances are not a factor. But with all its attraction and usefulness, AI has its limits. Something essential is missing in everything it touches.
In today’s Western culture, which monetizes everything, Buddhism has been monetized to signify a peaceful state of mind. What is left out of this version of Buddhism is that this peaceful state comes, not from white washing or avoiding, but from turning towards the inevitable messiness and suffering that is part and parcel of every human being. All forms of Buddhism, everything in Buddhist thought and practice, refer back to the 4 noble truths, that we humans all suffer, we suffer because we want things to be different than how they are and that there is a way out of this trap. This basic truth of suffering contains the seed of our freedom. In Buddhism we turn and face the suffering around and within us and use it to transform us into free, compassionate human beings. Machines, not being sentient like us, do not endure the messiness of suffering or death or grief nor do they know love or the experience of overcoming trauma which makes them incapable of the human emotions that are basic to the human struggle. This lack of ability to feel as we humans feel makes AI a poor teacher, artist or anything else that requires depth of emotion and empathy.
There is certainly a place for AI, be it medical, business or other enterprises that require a synthesis of large quantities of data. It’s a handy tool for those sorts of jobs. But AI does not belong in the realm of art or spiritual transmission. These messy, beautiful things live in the realm of the human heart and we reduce the human heart to data points at our peril- there will always be something missing from the equation. That something is the unquantifiable aspects of impermanence, death, old age and love, all the things that make art, mysticism and our complex psychology come alive in a field of not knowing, the mystery.
At its core AI is just reconfigured data, which remains in the realm of the mind. It has no heart, no struggle no striving. Because of that lack, whatever AI touches turns to white washed facts, cardboard images devoid of empathy and missing the messy richness of life. Good art, good teaching, deep communication and healing connections require more than data, they require empathy, they require imperfection. The magic of art comes from not knowing, something AI will never be able to offer since it only knows knowing.