... very soon, even the most wondrous and super-human of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will one day stand before our eyes, talk with us and walk with us, and we will live in their realms should we choose, all with a snap of our fingers: A relatively fast and easy way for human beings to achieve life in some perfect world, filled with perfect Buddhas, not a problem or care, will be available in the surprisingly near future.
Alas, with the power about to be offered us, perhaps the vast majority of human beings will choose mere visions of material wealth, power, sex and conquest as the place to realize their dreams and desires. However, should we choose instead, the most incredible visions and ideals of the Mahayana Buddhist Sutras, their boundless scope and wondrous scenery, will also be at hand, to be lived by any of us at the flick of a switch, as our own visions and scenery. And like the Buddhists, the people of other religions will reside with the saviors and saints in their visions of paradise too, as real as the back of one’s praying hands, as real as the nose on Buddha’s face.
It just depends on what “real” means.
Simulation devices and techniques will exist that thoroughly take over all our conscious awareness, whereby the data input to our five senses will be replaced with alternatives of our own design and choosing. All that need be done is to artistically animate such a world, then plug ourselves in, turn the program on and let it run (with maybe a mind-altering drug assist in suspending disbelief, causing us fully to buy into what we experience.) It might not be the “real” world as we ordinarily define “real,” but it would be “real to us.” In fact, according to basic teachings of traditional Buddhism as well as the lessons of modern neuro-science, even your take-for-granted, first hand experience of “the real world” right this second is largely a manufactured production between your ears. Thus, who is to say that one would be less “real” than the other?
No, you cannot know that you’re not in such a simulation even right now.
But before we address such a “made up made real” world in more detail, let’s look at the changes that may lead us there in the coming decades:
AI (“Artificial Intelligence”) currently has countless uses, and the next few years will see expansions in its power and spread rivaling the growth of the Internet itself. Automated machines will serve as firefighters and medical rescuers, store clerks, soldiers, skilled surgeons, babysitters and kind companions to our children and the fragile elderly, vegetable pickers, assembly line operators, warehouse stockers, bus and bulldozer drivers, accountants and translators, window washers, office janitors, lawyers and cleaners of our polluted oceans and nuclear waste. They will undertake, without complaint, tedious and dangerous tasks while the rest of us recline on an AI scrubbed beach, reading an AI suggested book, listening to AI compiled playlists, featuring words and music composed by AI.
AI has the ability to learn and grow smarter. Systems will help in resolving disputes on local and international levels, serving as impartial judges, treaty negotiators and peace monitors. AI can draw fair and accurate territorial maps between disputing nations, oversee and enforce commercial contract provisions, assess financial liability from accidents often more dependably and consistently than human mediators. There already exist algorithms that determine payouts for insurance claims, eligibility for medical procedures, and litigation outcome predictors which can sort through decades of court precedents to weigh potential legal risks. Our business inventories and home refrigerators will be filled by automated purchasers “who” make sure that we never run out of materials or milk, all to be delivered on time by driverless trucks and pilotless drones launched from unmanned farms and factories. Medical diagnostic systems are already in operation which can analyze millions of pages of journal literature and patient tests faster and more extensively than any flesh and blood doctor.
When the electronic sports referee calls a ball “foul,” it is most likely a true and fair call, better than the human eye which might be fooled. At least for now, the heart will be missing from purely calculated determinations, so machine magistrates and law court judges will divide their tasks, the computer offering an advisory decision based on the strict rules and precise numbers, the human able to overrule due to additional circumstances and equities. The human physician will frequently spot things that the “digital doctor” will miss, but the opposite will be just as true.
Not only will AI make early diagnoses of diseases by gathering data from our smart toilets, telemetry toothbrushes and embedded nano-blood scanners, they will be our self-driving ambulances (“avatar” human doctors administering treatments to transported patients from hundreds of miles away), ER diagnosticians, robot scalpels more precise than any human hand, bed-making orderlies, meal servers, error-free pharmacists and constantly attentive nurses in the ICU. They will “man” the hospice wing too, where, as we wither away at the ripe old age of 200, programs will decide the appropriate doses of drugs or pain killing impulses to the brain and, perhaps, the most logical time to pull the plug.
AI personas that come to life as digital simulations will become increasingly more common in our lives. Famous historical figures, fictional characters, and even walking-talking 3-D embodiments of our long deceased relatives will be invited to appear in our rooms or for a meal, fully equipped to interact and respond with natural-seeming emotions and expressions, in detailed conversations about the ‘good old days.’ Our first, very primitive attempts of today will only get better, becoming more lucid in speech, ever more true-to-life, as our online social media data and recorded words are incorporated by networks of super-computers into our post-mortem reembodiments.
While I hope that we never do without live human educators, AI increasingly will teach our children in our schools. I foresee beloved class “AI-ssistants” shaped like large furry bears and famous anime characters, designed to introduce the three Rs to our kids. while a human teacher looks on encouragingly (although perhaps herself as a people-shaped avatar run from a centralized control booth thousands of miles away.) Who would not love to learn math from that famous cartoon mouse or rabbit?
What about Buddhist teaching in 2080? The Dharma will be preached by Thai AI-jahns, with a quick command of stories and citations but no need to sleep, Binary-Bhantes with a human appearance or, should one prefer, as a fury llama dressed in a lama’s robes. At the touch of a screen, and as 3-D holographic simulations, they’ll appear right in our living rooms to lead meditation, offer a quick sermon and recite a chant. In fact, Bodhidharma and the 6th Ancestor, any long-deceased Rinpoche or famous living Venerable, not to mention the Buddha and Great Bodhisattvas themselves, will be seen to walk, talk and come for tea. They will answer questions on request with voice and gesture, all based on the extensive record of their character’s teachings, collected in a database (including brand new wisdom extrapolated by machine learning for unprecedented situations and your personal spiritual needs) much as today’s early virtual assistants – Alexa and Siri – report the weather forecast and anticipate your musical tastes on demand.
Of course, who needs the middle man? Perhaps, somewhere down the road, algebra and history will be uploaded directly and safely into the human brain in just a few moments, while we are still children, or even prior to birth, much as we now install apps in seconds on our phone. Moral lessons may be installed too. Likewise, Dharma lessons might be directly impressed into our heads and hearts. Mental memories and the beneficial after-effects of having attended long retreats or long years of university might be created in our brains, complete with accompanying skills in muscle memory, perhaps in moments, all without our ever leaving home. Your medical knowledge and hand skills could equal that of famous brain surgeons in a matter of days or hours, simply requiring a bit of dexterity training so that fingers catch up to knowledge. Why meditate or chant for years when the mind can plug in to a meditating and chanting cartridge, much as some traditional Buddhists abbreviate Sutra reading with the spin of prayer wheels? A long 3-year Buddhist retreat, with all the small details, human exchanges, rituals, chants, meals, profound meditation experiences and hourly bathroom breaks, might be put in us overnight. Of course, rather than virtual visits to the “Holo-Himalayas,” some yet might elect for far-away, “in the flesh” Buddhist gatherings, assuming they have the cash, freedom and time.
... to be continued ...
Gassho, J
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