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In one sense, tech barons like Sam Altman at ChatGPT and Mark Zuckerberg at Meta are building literal know-it-alls with “superintelligent AI.” Even now, ask AI any question, even the most unanswerable philosophical and spiritual question, and it will spit back answers that appear cogent and coherent. Of course they aren’t answers to the basic questions of life at all, merely reasonable or erroneous compilations of the innumerable texts and knowledge sources that AI has voraciously scarfed So the question is: In creating “super intelligence,” and giving machines the simulacrum of “agency” (i.e. self and ego), are these tech lords actually manifesting super intelligence, or proliferating super stupidity? It’s the latter. For example, in my last column, “Questions only insight can answer,” I asked: Why is it so difficult and rare for human beings to awaken true intelligence within? First AI gave its two cents worth about the theme of my column: “Ultimately, the insight is that questions themselves are powerful tools for knowledge acquisition, because they direct attention, expose hidden assumptions, and inspire new pathways for exploration.” That sounds very reasonable, but it moronically misses the point. Insight, understanding and wisdom aren’t about “knowledge acquisition,” but flow from stillness and silence, which AI will never Of course AI’s builders and marketers care only about knowledge acquisition. They are rendering and reducing all human knowledge, including the creative arts, into energy sucking data centers, which, as the earth burns in the present, will supposedly benefit humankind at some receding point in the future. Many people believe that insight is simply making new connections between existing knowledge. It isn’t however. Insight is both the wordless, pre-verbal “aha” moment (which may or may not be rendered into words, knowledge or art), and, much more significantly, the wordless state of seeing and being that comes when knowledge has been set aside and the known has been surpassed in awareness and Regarding AI and its masters’ of the universe ignorance, AI spit back an answer to my question about why it’s so difficult for human beings to awaken true intelligence with a know-it-all answer. cogently and stupidly it said, “Awakening ‘true intelligence’ is difficult and rare primarily due to the dominant influence of the ego and ingrained mental conditioning, combined with fundamental biological and cognitive limitations of the human brain.” condescending and patronizing attitude of the men building and marketing the know-it-all machines, the mansplaining is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, it’s disturbing. The question I asked wasn’t meant to be answered, but rather held and inquired into by individuals and groups of individuals thinking together. The speed and superficiality of AI’s answers is a slap in the face to human beings and human inquiry. true, as far as it goes, that “awakening true intelligence is difficult and rare primarily due to the dominant influence of the ego and ingrained mental conditioning.” But that explanation delves no deeper than a waterbug on a stagnant pond. AI is simply wrong however, indeed dangerously wrong in the second part of its two-second, two-cents-worth answer, that there are “fundamental biological and cognitive limitations of the human brain” that prevent the awakening of true intelligence. are no fundamental biological and cognitive limitations in the human brain to awakening true intelligence. The limitations are solely psychological. AI’s answers are deeply misleading where philosophy and spirituality are concerned. Both its right and wrong answers attest to how AI, as it is now and is being developed, is an impediment to the emergence of human beings. It also attests to how knowledge is totally secondary to authentic inquiry and insight. Without questioning and delving deeper, explanations end up being superficial, circular and Sadly, that’s the direction we’re headed as individuals and a species with this new technology. But there is another possibility, one in which our relationship to knowledge itself undergoes a radical In that scenario, rather than merge with AI and become cyborgs, as fools like Musk propose, we would make AI the main repository of knowledge. Scientists would work to expand knowledge, and doctors would attend fully to patients with all medical knowledge at their fingertips. And everyone, including scientists and doctors, would take the attitude at the emotional level of “I don’t know.” The “I don’t know” that I’m referring to isn’t a holding position until the answer is given, or even until inquiry opens the door to insight and understanding. It is a quality of mind, an orientation of being, and a relationship of humility to the earth, to others, and to the universe. To be human is no longer about our pride of knowledge acquisition. AI has taken priority in that regard, and pride and arrogance need to be taken out of it or it will take over us. With respect to human beings, an emotionally held attitude of “I don’t know” is the first and most important attribute for freeing the human mind. Knowledge is not just the testable and verifiable knowledge of science. It’s also information, data, opinions, beliefs and traditions. These too are forms of knowledge, comprising the entire scope and field of the known. A human being sets temporarily aside scientific and practical knowledge, and ends the useless and irrelevant field of beliefs, traditions and opinions within. Then, without the baggage of the past dragging us down into perpetual darkness, we can perennially enter the infinite dimension of the new -- the unknown -- and live harmoniously on the good earth. © Scoop Media
