The Age of AI
Dear friends,
There are so many stories about AI, I thought to write about it a little. First I will say that there are my own opinions. The spiritual topics I generally cover are based firmly in yoga philosophy and the teachings of Yogananda. While I have done much study of world history and world economies, I cannot claim nearly the confidence in what I say that I can when I am basing it on Yogananda’s writings. But he never wrote about AI! :-)
One in-the-news aspect of AI has to do with the loss of jobs. It is true that there are jobs being lost to AI agents and such. The most similar time I can find is the Industrial Revolution. Many lost jobs to machinery. But about 50 years later, the average wage for the average worker had doubled! Certainly this was extremely hard on the folks who lost work, but in the long run technological progress has always lifted society and well-being. And it was at this time (1840-1890) that Europeans finally had adequate calories per day. So while the Industrial Revolution was hard on those displaced, society made huge progress over a short period of time.
That is not to say the advent of AI is all upside. It used to be folks could only throw rocks at each other. Then bows and arrows were invented. Then guns. And now our ridiculous level of destructive missile power. AI moves things up yet another notch as one individual may be able to create real havoc.
But the ability to do real good is also remarkable. As one example, I believe that cancer and many other illnesses will be virtually cured over the next 10-15 years. AI is able to run millions of simulations in a few hours that would have taken researchers years to do. And drugs are now being tailored to a given individual’s DNA. Amazing!
Lastly, there is a question of whether AI will ever achieve a level of consciousness. As a series of programs without emotion or feeling that is hard for me to picture. A robot cannot “want” to do anything. It can do what it is told and can be allowed to make mischief by poorly written programming instructions Or it can be programmed to “appear” to be conscious. A parrot repeating and mimicking words it has heard is not really speaking English.
For myself, I try to take a big step back and remember that this world is God’s dream. We are here to learn lessons and while serving is a vital part of the spiritual path, we are not here to make a heaven on earth. We each—and the planet as a whole—draw the lessons we need when we need them. We must do our best to help others, and to keep our own consciousness focused on the true goal of life. The presence of AI and other wonders does not change that in the slightest.
And next week we will go back to our regular scheduled programming. And I wrote this all myself without any AI assistance… I promise. :-)
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West