About
Introducing Wisdom and AI
Wisdom and AI is a paper on how we should approach the development of AI wisely, and what wisdom traditions, especially Buddhism, have to offer.
It comes from a research inquiry led by Rufus Pollock with Seeds of Renaissance and Life Itself. It has been developing over several years, and intensively over the last year, as the presence and impact of AI in our world have grown.
Why now
AI is arriving faster than our capacity to make sense of it. Most of the debate is about capability, safety and markets. Far less is about wisdom: the capacity to see what is good and to act skilfully towards it, as individuals and as societies. Wisdom traditions have thought hard about exactly that for thousands of years: about attention, craving, restraint, care and how we relate to minds unlike our own. We think they have something real to contribute, and we want to test that claim rather than assume it.
How we work
- Questions first. We split one governing question into four, and each of those into the sub-questions under it: the question tree.
- Then answers, with evidence. Each question gets a short answer and an essay that makes the case with sources. The thesis is set out to be explored and tested, and we will revise it as we learn.
- Many traditions. We draw especially on Buddhism, because it is the one we know best, and on other traditions as much as we can.
The four questions
- Alignment: can we make AI good, and what role can wisdom traditions play?
- Risk and pace: given existential risk and the chance alignment fails, how fast should we go?
- Broader impacts: how does AI change how we live, and how should we integrate it into our lives and societies?
- Consciousness: could AI be conscious or a moral patient, and how should we relate to it?
Get in contact
Questions, challenges and suggestions from other traditions are all welcome. The paper comes from the Seeds of Renaissance research community: get in contact there.