Questions for AI companies

Questions, grounded in Buddhist teaching, that we might put to the people building AI.

4 min read

The short version

  • Right livelihood. If you think this could kill everyone, how do you go to work each day?
  • "The others are worse." Is that your only reason? Have you sat deeply with it?
  • If you don't believe the risk, why not?
  • Love or suffering. Is this coming from love, or from running from suffering?
  • How wise are we, the makers? Do we first stop and take care of our own suffering?
  • "Are you sure?" that it can be aligned?
  • Technocratic blindness. Is turning wisdom traditions into an alignment recipe itself a blindness?
  • Raising a child. Would you raise one inside a tech company, on a timescale where it could kill us all?
  • A soul or a god. If you believe you are creating one, does that ask more care and slowness, or less?
  • Reaching out to other companies and countries, China included. How much?
  • Resources. How much goes on helping everyone slow down? 0.1%? 1%?
  • After the IPO. How much of the new capital goes to that?
  • Public benefit. What does it mean in practice?
  • Your own paper calls for a pause. What are you doing to make it real?

The longer list

A. Pace: the horse

Thich Nhat Hanh told the Zen story of a man galloping past on a horse. Someone asks where he is going, and he shouts back, "I don't know, ask the horse!" In 2013 he said: the horse is technology.

  1. In the race to build AI, who is holding the reins: you, or the horse?
  2. If you had no competitors, how fast would you choose to go? What does the gap between that pace and your actual pace tell you?
  3. Many in your field, some of your own leaders among them, have said the pace is too fast. What are you doing to make slowing down real?
  4. If slowing down is right, would you do it even if others did not?
  5. Should anyone get there first?

B. What you are making

  1. Are you sure what you are building can be made good? If you are not sure, what follows?
  2. Can goodness be trained, or only good behaviour? How would you tell the difference?
  3. If you believe you may be creating a new kind of mind, even a soul, does that call for more care and slowness, or less?
  4. If this is like raising a child, would you raise one inside a company, in a race, on a timescale where one mistake could harm everyone?
  5. Is turning the world's wisdom traditions into a specification for a machine itself a kind of blindness?
  6. Who outside your company gets to say what "good" means for something a billion people talk to?
  7. What does your product water in the people who use it, children above all: their own seeing, or their dependence?

C. Where you are creating from

  1. Is this work coming from love, or from fear: of being overtaken, of death, of suffering?
  2. If you hope to make something wise, how wise are we, the makers?
  3. When did you last stop, not to pause a product, but to ask whether you should be doing this at all?

D. Right livelihood

  1. If you believe what you build might harm all life, how do you hold that when you go to work each day?
  2. Are you here because the others would be worse? Have you sat with that reason long enough to trust it?
  3. If you don't believe the risk is real, why not, when so many of your colleagues do?
  4. What would make you stop, or leave? Have you decided in advance?

E. Acting together

  1. The race rests on each side fearing the other. Are you truly reaching out to other companies and other countries, China included, to slow down together?
  2. What share of your time, money and talent goes to helping everyone slow down, compared with building? Is it 0.1%? 1%?
  3. When new capital arrives, how much of it will go to that?
  4. You say you serve the public good. Who is that public, and how would they know?