[FutureBuddha (1)] Playful Questions ...

**Bion** · 01-05-2023, 02:05 PM

I like the “can a robot be a buddhist teacher?” question.
I say: in a sense, sure! The same way we have scholars with mere academic interest that are way more knowledgeable about buddhism than many transmitted and ordained teachers. They don’t need realization to dish out correct information.
I believe in our case, it is emotions and feelings that make it challenging to have direct realization of the dharma, which is what we need in order to embody or manifest buddha qualities. But AI bypasses that and can draw conclusions and make decisions based on the actual conditions presented, not some twisted variation of those, fabricated by a human mind. AI has no need for realization or to use the dharma to eliminate its own suffering.
But regardless how good of a teacher a robot might be, humans require teachers that understand human nature, relate to it and can observe and use the subtleties of that to give out appropriate teachings at appropriate moments. I wonder if an AI could develop empathy or compassion and be able to sometimes sacrifice truth and lower itself to the level of human weakness. I don’t know if an AI would be capable of putting emotions before facts, like humans do. On the other hand, maybe compassion ( as an emotion) is not needed when one can see all conditions clearly and understand what the sum of them would mean in human terms. Maybe that would just result in a full picture for an AI and that would dictate how it can most efficiently and beneficially handle humans. Maybe compassion is just how we compensate for our blindspots.
I find this to be a truly complex question, cause it requires to go way deeper into the issue and start defining many many aspects of human nature.

Sorry for the ridiculous length of this comment!

[emoji1374] Sat Today lah

**Jippou** · 01-05-2023, 03:03 PM

[FutureBuddha] Playful Questions ...

I enjoy science fiction immensely, and I believe, at its best, it asked us the question, “what does it mean to be human?” Sci-Fi’s reimagined “Battestar Galactica” does a masterful job at this, as do many others, notably Data in STNG or Decker etc. in Blade Runner, or the moral morass of “Gatica,” then there is Westworld or Altered Carbon more recently, just to mention movies and TV shows. It seem to me though that our speculating might be better turned toward the near immediate future of how to live skillfully in a world of ecological collapse and environmental destruction. What does it mean to end suffering when we stand at the precipice of mass starvation and conflict over increasingly precious resources like clean water, or even air? I think to get to the utopian future we need to survive the dystopian present. I know there are buddhist thinkers doing just those kinds of thinking, so perhaps speculating on these questions is a nice “distraction” as it is, from our present reality.

Ran long, but it’s hard to be brief lol

Gassho,
Jason
SAT

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalks

**Jundo** · 01-05-2023, 03:13 PM

It seem to me though that our speculating might be better turned toward the near immediate future of how to live skillfully in a world of ecological collapse and environmental destruction. What does it mean to end suffering when we stand at the precipice of mass starvation and conflict over increasingly precious resources like clean water, or even air? I think to get to the utopian future we need to survive the dystopian present.

I think that many of these technological developments are so close at hand that this is, in fact, the "near term" future. Furthermore, to get REAL solutions to problems such as ecological collapse, environmental destruction and mass starvation, we have to think of some more radical changes than personal reusable shopping bags, recycling cans and driving cars with slightly better emissions and gas mileage. Big problems will not be solved by slight solutions.

Gassho, J

stlah

**Veronica** · 01-05-2023, 04:30 PM

It doesn't seem ever premature to ask a question. Great discoveries are inspired by people asking weird futuristic questions that seem irrelevant or impossible to answer. And so we need people who consider the ethical implications of these impossible ideas that may become possible. It's such an interesting idea to match Zen with future technology, because Zen has strong ethics.
Of course if we get too stuck on the future, that doesn't seem to fit with the whole "living in the moment" zen thing, which I'm still just trying to figure out as a beginner. I have a tendency to live in the past and the future, and am trying to focus on the present. But we can focus on many things at once, right?
Also, in relation to the state of the world, many of the questions in this part of the forum may relate directly to the environment, or to food availability, or to the evolution of the arts, or to education, or........... It's all related.

Sorry to go long. Are we allowed to go long now, it seems that it's ok? These thoughts are hard to fit into three sentences.
Veronica
Sat today.

**Jippou** · 01-05-2023, 04:31 PM

Originally posted by Jundo

I think that many of these technological developments are so close at hand that this is, in fact, the "near term" future. Furthermore, to get REAL solutions to problems such as ecological collapse, mass starvation and environmental destruction, we have to think of some more radical changes than using reusable shopping bags, recycling cans and driving electric cars. Big problems will not be solved by slight solutions.

Gassho, J

stlah

I was actually pondering this after I posted. I think your right.

Gassho,
Jason
SAT

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**Jundo** · 01-05-2023, 11:59 PM

Hi Veronica,

Originally posted by Veronica

...
Of course if we get too stuck on the future, that doesn't seem to fit with the whole "living in the moment" zen thing, which I'm still just trying to figure out as a beginner. I have a tendency to live in the past and the future, and am trying to focus on the present. But we can focus on many things at once, right?

One wonderful aspect of Zen practice is our ability to know stillness in change, to know goallessness even as we have goals, to have a sense of "nothing to fix" even as we also know that there are problems that need fixing, and to be "in the present" even as we sometimes think and plan for the future or recall and learn from the past. We encounter and perceive the world with both views (absolute and relative) in our heart at once.

Also, we do not get lost thoughts of the future, nor do we wallow in the past ... but we can (and need to in order to survive) think of past and future or present as we need.

The Buddha, Dogen, Nishijima Roshi and Suzuki Roshi, all were people with hopes and dreams for the future of humanity, who preached ideas and built monasteries and such to realize their envisioned plans for the near and long term future. They did not just live satisfied, passive and silent in the moment, but rather, knew the satisfaction of working plans and the silence in sometimes needing to speak!

Sorry to go long. Are we allowed to go long now, it seems that it's ok? These thoughts are hard to fit into three sentences.

Some more discussion and wordiness is needed for the subject matter, so that will not apply here (although we should not get tangled in our thoughts either.) I will say something about that in the introductory post.

Gassho, J

stlah

**Jundo** · 01-06-2023, 12:53 AM

I will also say that some of these crazy "SF sounding" questions are not all necessarily far-fetched as possibilities, and some may be more near term or otherwise to become feasible to some degree. From 1923, jet travel, personal computers, bases on the moon and such also all sounded like fantasy to many people, I am sure.

Many of these questions are, perhaps, much much nearer term realities than one might assume ...

For example:

Can a robot be a Buddhist teacher, a “Rinpoche” or “Roshi?”

https://youtu.be/RH3Yk1spxtk

Do not miss the final scene of the Zen priests prostrating to robot Kannon.
Might a genetically modified monkey become a meditative “monk?”

Planet of the Apes come true?

Scientists Uncover the Gene Responsible for Human’s Big Brain

... “In a previous study, we were able to show that ARHGAP11B can enlarge a primate brain. However, it was previously unclear whether ARHGAP11B had a major or minor role in the evolutionary enlargement of the human neocortex,” says Wieland Huttner. ... “Our study shows that the gene in chimpanzee organoids causes an increase in relevant brain stem cells and an increase in those neurons that play a crucial role in the extraordinary mental abilities of humans,” said Michael Heide, the study’s lead author, who is head of the Junior Research Group Brain Development and Evolution at the German Primate Center and employee at the MPI-CBG.

When the ARGHAP11B gene was knocked out in human brain organoids or the ARHGAP11B protein’s function was inhibited, the number of these brain stem cells was reduced to that of a chimpanzee.

So, would the opposite thus be true, adding ARGHAP11B to primate brains?
Would Buddhism sanction a cross-species marriage, or a wedding of human to hologram?

https://youtu.be/zGLUtyz-fIY
Can AI attain enlightenment?

My request to the new and advanced AI know as GPT.3 for a Zen Koan in the style of Hemingway (author of the book, "Old Man and the Sea," about a fisherman who struggles to haul in a great fish) ...

Here is a Zen koan written in the style of Ernest Hemingway:

A student came to the Zen master and asked, "What is the nature of enlightenment?"

The Zen master replied, "Enlightenment is like a fish in the sea. It is always there, but it cannot be caught.

You can try to capture it with a net, or you can try to lure it in with bait. But the fish is elusive, and it will always slip through your grasp.

So do not cling to the fish, or to any other thing. Instead, let go of all attachments and judgments, and let the fish come to you."

The student was puzzled, and asked, "How can I let the fish come to me?"

The Zen master replied, "The fish will come to you when you stop trying to catch it. When you let go of all striving and seeking, the fish will appear in your midst.

So do not search for the fish, for it is already here. Instead, awaken to the fish within you, and let it guide your actions and your thoughts."

And with these words, the student was enlightened, and saw the fish in all things.
Do bionic brains have Buddha Nature?

Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence

Abstract: Intelligence is a central feature of human beings’ primary and interpersonal experience. Understanding how intelligence originated and scaled during evolution is a key challenge for modern biology. Some of the most important approaches to understanding intelligence are the ongoing efforts to build new intelligences in computer science (AI) and bioengineering. However, progress has been stymied by a lack of multidisciplinary consensus on what is central about intelligence regardless of the details of its material composition or origin (evolved vs. engineered). We show that Buddhist concepts offer a unique perspective and facilitate a consilience of biology, cognitive science, and computer science toward understanding intelligence in truly diverse embodiments. In coming decades, chimeric and bioengineering technologies will produce a wide variety of novel beings that look nothing like familiar natural life forms; how shall we gauge their moral responsibility and our own moral obligations toward them, without the familiar touchstones of standard evolved forms as comparison? Such decisions cannot be based on what the agent is made of or how much design vs. natural evolution was involved in their origin. We propose that the scope of our potential relationship with, and so also our moral duty toward, any being can be considered in the light of Care—a robust, practical, and dynamic lynchpin that formalizes the concepts of goal-directedness, stress, and the scaling of intelligence; it provides a rubric that, unlike other current concepts, is likely to not only survive but thrive in the coming advances of AI and bioengineering. We review relevant concepts in basal cognition and Buddhist thought, focusing on the size of an agent’s goal space (its cognitive light cone) as an invariant that tightly links intelligence and compassion. Implications range across interpersonal psychology, regenerative medicine, and machine learning. The Bodhisattva’s vow (“for the sake of all sentient life, I shall achieve awakening”) is a practical design principle for advancing intelligence in our novel creations and in ourselves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140411/
If we opt for life spans of 200 or 2,000 years, are we depriving life to someone never born?

To Count Our Days: The Scientific and Ethical Dimensions of Radical Life Extension

... Until recently, however, the possibility of dramatically extending human life has been consigned to the realm of speculation or science fiction. Scientists’ understanding of why people age – and how to stop aging – was not sophisticated enough to hold out hope that life could be extended much beyond traditional old age. But that may be changing.

Today, scientists at major universities and research institutions are talking about treatments that could extend average life spans by decades – or even longer. None of these medical prospects is yet a reality, and even the most optimistic researchers acknowledge that major breakthroughs could prove elusive. But for the first time in human history, some experts believe we may be at the threshold of a new aging paradigm, one that replaces the generally accepted limits of human life with more open-ended possibilities. ... Extending human life spans beyond those of even the oldest of our ancestors would raise a host of new social, political, economic, environmental, moral and other questions. Current ideas about marriage and parenting might change, for example, as people remain active for decades longer. Questions about environmental sustainability would likely increase if the number of people dying each year were to drop precipitously. And concerns about the divide between rich and poor might deepen if older people in wealthy countries spend large sums of money to prolong life while young children in the poorest nations continue to die of treatable diseases.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion...ife-extension/
At what point does disassembling one’s truly smart “smart phone” amount to killing sentient life, if not criminal murder?

1700 expert opinions of AGI [2023]

... The greatest fear about AI is singularity (also called Artificial General Intelligence), a system capable of human-level thinking. According to some experts, singularity also implies machine consciousness. Regardless of whether it is conscious or not, such a machine could continuously improve itself and reach far beyond our capabilities. ... We looked at the results of 5 surveys with around 1700 participants where researchers [in the AI field] estimated when singularity would happen. In all cases, the majority of participants expected AI singularity before 2060. ...

In 2012/2013, Vincent C. Muller, the president of the European Association for Cognitive Systems, and Nick Bostrom from the University of Oxford, who published over 200 articles on superintelligence and artificial general intelligence (AGI), conducted a survey of AI researchers. 550 participants answered the question: “When is AGI likely to happen?” The answers are distributed as

10% of participants think that AGI is likely to happen by 2022
For 2040, the share is 50%
90% of participants think that AGI is likely to happen by 2075.

In 2017 May, 352 AI experts who published at the 2015 NIPS and ICML conferences were surveyed. Based on survey results, experts estimate that there’s a 50% chance that AGI will occur until 2060. However, there’s a significant difference of opinion based on geography: Asian respondents expect AGI in 30 years, whereas North Americans expect it in 74 years. Some significant job functions that are expected to be automated until 2030 are: Call center reps, truck driving, retail sales.

In 2019, 32 AI experts participated in a survey on AGI timing:

45% of respondents predict a date before 2060
34% of all participants predicted a date after 2060
21% of participants predicted that singularity will never occur.

In the 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, conducted with 738 experts who published at the 2021 NIPS and ICML conferences, AI experts estimate that there’s a 50% chance that high-level machine intelligence will occur until 2059.

https://research.aimultiple.com/arti...larity-timing/
If machines, enhanced animals or extraterrestrials possess forms of self-awareness and intelligence very different from human beings, would each be “sentient” in a Buddhist sense?

People who work with octopuses or who spend a lot of time in their company describe the sense that when you look at an octopus, there is something looking back."When you're dealing with an octopus who's being attentively curious about something, it is very hard to imagine that there's nothing experienced by it," says Peter Godfrey-Smith, professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney in Australia, and author of Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. "It seems kind of irresistible. That itself is not evidence, that's just an impression."

Given this hunch as a starting point, how do you begin to explore the consciousness of an animal so unlike ourselves?

... To start with, what do philosophers and scientists mean by "consciousness" in this context? Godfrey-Smith takes it as meaning there is "something it is like to be that animal". In a famous essay, the philosopher Thomas Nagel asks "What is it like to be a bat?" Nagel described the problem that imagining the inner experience of a bat is very difficult, if not impossible, when your reference point is the human body and your own human mind.

Likewise, imagining an octopus's inner life is a hard thing to do from our human standpoint. Try it for a moment – imagine what it's like to be suspended in the cool blueish twilight down at the seabed, perhaps a slight drag of current pulling you this way and that, your eight arms waving gently around you. When you picture the tips of your suckered limbs moving, what do you imagine it feels like? Is it, perhaps, something like wiggling your human fingers and toes? Take a closer look at the octopus's nervous system, and things get even stranger. The octopus's arms have more autonomy than our human arms and legs do. Each has its own miniature brain, giving it a degree of independence from the animal's central brain. Our own nervous system, however, is highly centralised, with the brain the seat of sensory integration, emotion, initiating movement, behaviour and other actions.

"One of the real challenges we have is to try to work out what experience might be like in a less centralised, less integrated kind of system," says Godfrey-Smith.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ely%20sentient
May I harvest cloned organs or full replacement bodies specifically bred for that purpose without killing a human life?

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: August 4, 2022

This startup wants to copy you into an embryo for organ harvesting
With plans to create realistic synthetic embryos, grown in jars, Renewal Bio is on a journey to the horizon of science and ethics.

The company, Renewal Bio, is pursuing recent advances in stem-cell technology and artificial wombs demonstrated by Jacob Hanna, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Earlier this week, Hanna showed that starting with mouse stem cells, his lab could form highly realistic-looking mouse embryos and keep them growing in a mechanical womb for several days until they developed beating hearts, flowing blood, and cranial folds.

It’s the first time such an advanced embryo has been mimicked without sperm, eggs, or even a uterus. Hanna’s report was published in the journal Cell on Monday.

“This experiment has huge implications,” says Bernard Siegel, a patient advocate and founder of the World Stem Cell Summit. “One wonders what mammal could be next in line.” The answer is humans. Hanna tells MIT Technology Review he is already working to replicate the technology starting with human cells and hopes to eventually produce artificial models of human embryos that are the equivalent of a 40- to 50-day-old pregnancy.

This startup wants to copy you into an embryo for organ harvesting

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/04/1056633/startup-wants-copy-you-embryo-organ-harvesting/

With plans to create realistic synthetic embryos, grown in jars, Renewal Bio is on a journey to the horizon of science and ethics.
If someone is partly controlled in behavior by bodily implants (e.g., to prevent acts of extreme violence by hardened criminals), are they still karmically responsible for volitional acts?

It’s Not My Fault, My Brain Implant Made Me Do It
Where does responsibility lie if a person acts under the influence of their brain implant?

Mr. X received deep brain stimulation (DBS), a procedure involving an implant that sends electric impulses to specific targets in the brain to alter neural activity. ... Mr. X, an epilepsy patient, received DBS as part of an investigation to locate the origin of his seizures. During DBS, he hallucinated that doctors became chefs with aprons before the stimulation ended and the scene faded.

In both of these real-world cases, DBS clearly triggered the changed perception. And that introduces a host of thorny questions. As neurotechnologies like this become more common, the behaviors of people with DBS and other kinds of brain implants might challenge current societal views on responsibility. ...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...made-me-do-it/
If we erase painful memories of bad acts done or suffered, thus eliminating all reflection, regret or pain, are we erasing Karma too?

Scientists Are on the Trail of a Treatment for Traumatic Memories

The dream of a drug that can help ameliorate the stress associated with durable traumatic memories, in order to treat disorders such as PTSD, has come a step closer to reality, according to a preclinical study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study identified an enzyme called ACSS2 (acetyl-CoA synthetase 2) as a regulator of the consolidation of long-term fear memories in rodents. Knocking out the ACSS2 gene, or administering a short-acting ACSS2 inhibitor compound, reduced mice and rats’ ability to form long-term memories of fearful events.

“Our findings suggest that ACSS2 is an attractive target for the treatment of past traumatic memory conditions including PTSD,” said study co-senior author Shelley L. Berger, PhD, the Daniel S. Och University Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and director of the Epigenetics Institute at Penn.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/ne...matic-memories

Bion's comment: "I don’t know if an AI would be capable of putting emotions before facts, like humans do."

MIT: Emotion AI, explained

As artificial intelligence learns to interpret and respond to human emotion, senior leaders should consider how it could change their industries and play a critical role in their firms.

What did you think of the last commercial you watched? Was it funny? Confusing? Would you buy the product? You might not remember or know for certain how you felt, but increasingly, machines do. New artificial intelligence technologies are learning and recognizing human emotions, and using that knowledge to improve everything from marketing campaigns to health care. These technologies are referred to as “emotion AI.” Emotion AI is a subset of artificial intelligence (the broad term for machines replicating the way humans think) that measures, understands, simulates, and reacts to human emotions. It’s also known as affective computing, or artificial emotional intelligence. The field dates back to at least 1995, when MIT Media lab professor Rosalind Picard published “Affective Computing.”

Emotion AI, explained | MIT Sloan

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/emotion-ai-explained

Gassho, J

stlah

**Veronica** · 01-06-2023, 02:37 AM

Originally posted by Jundo

Hi Veronica,

One wonderful aspect of Zen practice is our ability to know stillness in change, to know goallessness even as we have goals, to have a sense of "nothing to fix" even as we also know that there are problems that need fixing, and to be "in the present" even as we sometimes think and plan for the future or recall and learn from the past. We encounter and perceive the world with both views (absolute and relative) in our heart at once.

Also, we do not get lost thoughts of the future, nor do we wallow in the past ... but we can (and need to in order to survive) think of past and future or present as we need.

The Buddha, Dogen, Nishijima Roshi and Suzuki Roshi, all were people with hopes and dreams for the future of humanity, who preached ideas and built monasteries and such to realize their envisioned plans for the near and long term future. They did not just live satisfied, passive and silent in the moment, but rather, knew the satisfaction of working plans and the silence in sometimes needing to speak!

Some more discussion and wordiness is needed for the subject matter, so that will not apply here (although we should not get tangled in our thoughts either.) I will say something about that in the introductory post.

Gassho, J

stlah

Thank you for both answers. [emoji4][emoji106]
Gassho
Veronica
ST

**Jundo** · 01-08-2023, 03:16 AM

I added "android spouse" to the following line in my top post, as it is a good rhyme ...

Coming Buddhists will no more agree on whether an intelligent house or android spouse are sentient beings than they now agree on whether a mouse or grouse is one. **

** Footnote: What about Rats? Buddhist Disciplinary Guidelines on Rats: Daoxuan’s Vinaya Commentaries
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/7/508/htm

... and inspired by this ...

https://youtu.be/HODTvfUAPhw

... simpler versions of which are now available for sale here in Japan and elsewhere ...

Do we have to pass laws to ban such marriages? Will there be (there will, certainly) lawsuits by someone wishing to have such a marriage legally recognized the same as any other? Can we stand in the way of someone's love?

What would I, as Buddhist clergy, do if asked to perform such a marriage ceremony ... Hmmm. (Right now, I would probably think of it as much like someone's wishing to marry their hybrid car or toaster or a toy cat. I am very sure that I would refuse to do so because there is some seemingly very unhealthy aspect to such one-sided relationships. But is this becoming qualitatively different? Hmmmm. )

Gassho, J

stlah

**Tai Do** · 01-08-2023, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by Jundo

What would I, as Buddhist clergy, do if asked to perform such a marriage ceremony ... Hmmm. (Right now, I would probably think of it as much like someone's wishing to marry their hybrid car or toaster or a toy cat. I am very sure that I would refuse to do so because there is some seemingly very unhealthy aspect to such one-sided relationships. But is this becoming qualitatively different? Hmmmm. )

Gassho, J

stlah

I agree with you, Jundo, on this. Right now there is no evidence to say that our androids are sentient beings. But it can surely change in the (near? very near?) future.
Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah

**Tokan** · 01-10-2023, 09:07 AM

All you need is android love, da-da-da-da-da
All you need is android love, love, android love is all you need

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

**Gareth** · 01-23-2023, 12:22 AM

Just out of curiosity I wondered what ChatGPT would have to say about the possibility of robots being Buddhist teachers in the future

“
It is possible that in the future there may be robots that are programmed to teach Buddhism or perform religious ceremonies. However, it is important to note that Buddhism is a religion and spiritual practice that centers around personal experience and understanding, and it is not clear how a robot could fully understand or convey the teachings of Buddhism in the same way that a human teacher can. Additionally, Buddhism places a great emphasis on the importance of personal relationships and interactions between teacher and student, and it is uncertain how a robot teacher would be able to fulfill this aspect of the tradition.
“

When asked to put this in the form of a haiku…

“
Robot teachers, may be
Buddhism's path they cannot see
Human touch still key
“

Gassho,
Gareth
Sat today, Lah

**Jishin** · 01-23-2023, 03:17 AM

Arguments for AI being able to be a Buddhist teacher:

AI can process large amounts of Buddhist texts and teachings quickly and accurately, potentially leading to more efficient and effective instruction.

AI can assist Buddhist teachers in performing tasks such as answering questions, allowing teachers to focus on more complex tasks that require human expertise.

AI can help to address the shortage of Buddhist teachers in certain areas, making Buddhism more accessible to people in remote or underserved communities.

Arguments against AI being able to be a Buddhist teacher:

AI may lack the ability to understand and communicate effectively with students, which is an important aspect of being a good Buddhist teacher.

AI systems can make mistakes, and in the field of Buddhism, these mistakes could have serious consequences for students.

AI-based systems can be expensive to develop and maintain, which may limit their accessibility to certain communities.

Buddhism is a spiritual and personal path that requires deep understanding and compassion, qualities that are hard to replicate through AI.

Buddhism teachers are not only conveyors of knowledge but also guides and role models, who lead by example and show how to integrate Buddhist teachings in daily life, which AI can't do.

While AI has the potential to be an efficient tool for teaching Buddhism, it cannot replace human teachers. Buddhism is a spiritual and personal path that requires deep understanding and compassion, which AI can't replicate. Additionally, Buddhism teachers are not only conveyors of knowledge but also guides and role models, who lead by example and show how to integrate Buddhist teachings in daily life, which AI can't do. Therefore, AI is not suitable to be a Buddhist teacher.

My 2 shekels,

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

**Jundo** · 01-23-2023, 03:24 AM

Of course, if ultimately, we ourselves are just very smart "meat machines," nature's mechanisms ourselves although biological ones whose sentience is derived from a complex brain structure ...

... and if "AI" also reaches a level of complexity and organization which results in sentience, emotion and all the rest, the same or even beyond our capabilities ...

... then many of the above questions regarding whether "AI can be a Zen teacher" are moot.

AI would most certainly be able to do so ... to have personal relationships and interactions ... and would be as capable of Buddhist teaching as any human being, or just a bad, but maybe even better.

Gassho, J

stlah