[FutureBuddha] Artificial Intelligence Buddha?

[Kiri]

Doug Smith discusses whether enlightenment is possible for AI and if so, how. I think you might find this discussion interesting: https://youtu.be/HmAuLuxZTNM

Gassho, Kiri
Sat/Lah

[Risho]

at this point, I don't know if enlightenment is possible my self.

gassho

risho
-stlah

[Jundo]

Thank you, Kiri. I quibble with some of Doug's assertions (he is not a technologist or scientist either, so we both speak very generally).

One consideration is whether AI can reach "general sentience" at all, which would seem to be necessary if the AI can truly be a "Buddha" rather than just mimicking the words and actions of a Buddha, much the same as a "mechanical man" who acts like a man, but without self-awareness, is not truly a man. Further, if there is sentience, it might be a form of sentience very different from human sentience, much as octopus intelligence and sentience, although seemingly very high, must be very different from our own. Could an AI Buddha even be something or someone we might relate too?

AI may have less trouble than we do in transcending "ignorance" which is the "self/other" divide, for it may come to view itself as merely systems which are components or parents of larger and smaller systems, without clear divisions.

In any case, I discuss all this in my book too, in a bit more detail. I think that Doug tends to look at some issues a bit narrowly. However, it is good to see others who are considering these issues. Thank you.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tokan]

Hi Jundo, Kiri.

I have a question. I wonder if an AI Buddha app or robot, while not able to achieve enlightenment itself, could lead you to the doors of awakening? After all, many zen (and other) stories demonstrate that a gesture or turn of phrase has opened the doors of awakening for many people throughout history. Traditionally it would appear that this could only be done by an awakened person, someone 'pointing out the right door' for you to go through. But could AI achieve this without sentience or having had it's own awakening?

As you mention Jundo, AI may view itself as a system of parts, but in some ways Buddhism does this too, with the skandhas and twelve causal links, etc. The four truths are an algorithm of sorts -

Suffering exists because faulty programming causes suffering.
Correction of fault, and elimination of suffering requires implementation of new 'coding' (eightfold path).

It would be interesting to see if 'lab grown' humans achieved sentience, i.e. mixing the skandhas in a lab could create a human form, but would it have that 'magic' ingredient of consciousness as we tend to perceive it, because consciousness seems to require the act of perception of it's existence, so is it a consequence of the ability to perceive? I suppose that's the old - "I think therefore I am". Perception, of course, being not just sensory input, but the mental processes that decode and attach meaning and purpose to the sensory data.

I'm still working on the code to correct my faulty programme (zazen!)

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

I have a question. I wonder if an AI Buddha app or robot, while not able to achieve enlightenment itself, could lead you to the doors of awakening? After all, many zen (and other) stories demonstrate that a gesture or turn of phrase has opened the doors of awakening for many people throughout history. Traditionally it would appear that this could only be done by an awakened person, someone 'pointing out the right door' for you to go through. But could AI achieve this without sentience or having had it's own awakening?

Oh, sure. We now have lessons and "enlightenment" triggered by old stories, poems, Koans, books and such ... so why not through the words and actions of a robot? Frankly, when I put some recent "Zen questions" into OpenAI ChatGPT-4, I was amazed how wise and thoughtful was the response regarding questions of Zen and Buddhist doctrine, including insights that I had not considered myself. Whether it is sentient or not, the words can still be helpful and mind opening.

As to sentient computers, I can only guess whether a machine of sufficient complexity might eventually achieve sentience to equal, or exceed, the human brain.

However, these devices might somehow achieve human sentience by making use of what makes us human to start with ... the neurological computer ... humachine ...

Organoid computers, made from human neurons ...
~~~~
Move over, artificial intelligence. Scientists announce a new ‘organoid intelligence’ field

Computers powered by human brain cells may sound like science fiction, but a team of researchers in the United States believes such machines, part of a new field called “organoid intelligence,” could shape the future — and now they have a plan to get there.

Organoids are lab-grown tissues that resemble organs. These three-dimensional structures, usually derived from stem cells, have been used in labs for nearly two decades ... Brain organoids don’t actually resemble tiny versions of the human brain, but the pen dot-size cell cultures contain neurons that are capable of brainlike functions, forming a multitude of connections.

Scientists call the phenomenon “intelligence in a dish.” ... He and his colleagues envision combining the power of brain organoids into a type of biological hardware more energy efficient than supercomputers. These “biocomputers” would employ networks of brain organoids to potentially revolutionize pharmaceutical testing for diseases like Alzheimer’s, provide insight into the human brain and change the future of computing. ... “Computing and artificial intelligence have been driving the technology revolution but they are reaching a ceiling,” said Hartung, senior study author, in a statement. “Biocomputing is an enormous effort of compacting computational power and increasing its efficiency to push past our current technological limits.” ...

... “The brain is still unmatched by modern computers,” Hartung said. “Brains also have an amazing capacity to store information, estimated at 2,500 (terabytes),” he added. “We’re reaching the physical limits of silicon computers because we cannot pack more transistors into a tiny chip.” ... Hartung recalled that he was asked by other researchers whether brain organoids could think or achieve consciousness. The question spurred him to consider feeding information to organoids about their environment and how to interact with it.

“This opens up research on how the human brain works,” said Hartung, who is also the codirector of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe. “Because you can start manipulating the system, doing things you cannot ethically do with human brains.”

... The brain organoids that Hartung currently uses would need to be scaled up for OI, or organoid intelligence. Each organoid has about the number of cells one would find in a fruit fly’s nervous system. A single organoid is about one-three-millionth the size of the human brain, which means it is the equivalent of about 800 megabytes of memory storage.

“They are too small, each containing about 50,000 cells. For OI, we would need to increase this number to 10 million,” he said.
The researchers also need ways to communicate with the organoids in order to send them information and receive readouts of what the organoids are “thinking.” The study authors have developed a blueprint that includes tools from bioengineering and machine learning, along with new innovations. Allowing for different kinds of input and output across organoid networks would allow for more complex tasks, the researchers wrote in the study.

“We developed a brain-computer interface device that is a kind of an EEG (electroencephalogram) cap for organoids, which we presented in an article published last August,” Hartung said. “It is a flexible shell that is densely covered with tiny electrodes that can both pick up signals from the organoid, and transmit signals to it.”
... sing brain organoids to create organoid intelligence is still very much in its infancy. Developing OI comparable to a computer with the brain power of a mouse could take decades, Hartung said.

But there are already promising results that illustrate what is possible. Study coauthor Dr. Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia, and his team recently showed that brain cells can learn to play Pong, the video game.

“Their team is already testing this with brain organoids,” Hartung said. “And I would say that replicating this experiment with organoids already fulfills the basic definition of OI. From hereon, it’s just a matter of building the community, the tools, and the technologies to realize OI’s full potential.” “We are entering a new world, where the interface between humans and human constructs blurs distinctions,” Kinderlerer wrote. “Society cannot passively await new discoveries; it must be involved in identifying and resolving possible ethical dilemmas and assuring that any experimentation is within ethical boundaries yet to be determined.” ...
BELOW: This magnified image shows a brain organoid produced in Hartung's lab. The culture was dyed to show neurons in magenta, cell nuclei in blue and other supporting cells in red and green

https://scitechdaily.com/a-new-field-of-computing-powered-by-human-brain-cells-organoid-intelligence/?fbclid=IwAR31aRjNlgHn1L09dD8btCbsjFLHOzKtF3SrT255akxmyyC-VrKA_Z2gUxs

[ATTACH=CONFIG]8296[/ATTACH]

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tokan]

Hi Jundo

Organoid computers, made from human neurons ...

Well, one would have to wonder if there is a 'critical threshold' with human neurons that leads to the formation of consciousness. Which one of our ancestors could be considered to have first experienced consciousness, because the brain (as a collection of neurons) has been around for a while in historical terms, and we may not consider some of our humanoid ancestors to have had consciousness.

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Tom M]

Hi Jundo



Well, one would have to wonder if there is a 'critical threshold' with human neurons that leads to the formation of consciousness. Which one of our ancestors could be considered to have first experienced consciousness, because the brain (as a collection of neurons) has been around for a while in historical terms, and we may not consider some of our humanoid ancestors to have had consciousness.

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

The critical question for me is really whether there is (or will ever be) something that it is like to be an artificial intelligence. I think philosophers these days tend to call that phenomenal consciousness, to clear up confusion with self-awareness (meta-consciousness). It's quite possible to have phenomenal consciousness (to experience things), without having access to a re-representation of those raw experiences (meta-consciousness).

My gut feeling is that phenomenal consciousness is part of (or is entirely) the ground of being, while meta-consciousness needs a complicated 'dance' to be happening on top of the ground of being (ie a biological brain).

Btw I didn't notice this sub-forum existed before... it will sorely tempt me to run long & often

Tom
Sat today