AI
Embodied Knowing versus Machine Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence)
Nothing presents both peril and possibility like artificial intelligence (AI). I’ve avoided writing about it; it feels so overwhelming. I’m intimidated contemplating how intelligence might evolve on Earth, the worst-case scenario is daunting, frightening and existential. Intelligence is us. The name we have given ourselves - Homo Sapiens - refers to our ability to know.
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information; and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
Wikipedia
In a rudimentary way, machines can already mimic these human capacities, although I’m far from certain that artificial intelligence (AI) will ever be fully realized, because I don’t think that machines have minds. Is Intelligence the same thing as Mind? Can machines achieve sentience?
Sentience refers to the capacity of an individual, including humans and animals, to experience feelings and have cognitive abilities, such as awareness and emotional reactions. It encompasses the ability to evaluate actions, remember consequences, assess risks and benefits, and have a degree of awareness.
ScienceDirect
The heart of Mind from the Buddhist perspective is an open field of potentiality. Those who think that human minds are the direct result and sole production of our brains won’t buy this distinction, but those who understand that human minds cannot be fully accounted for by brains and nervous systems think otherwise. In other words, machines may mimic consciousness, but can they realize dharmadhatu?
In Mahayana Buddhism, dharmadhatu refers to... the fundamental nature of reality, the ultimate space from which all phenomena arise and dissolve. Dharmadhatu is also considered the purified mind in its natural state, free of obscurations, and associated with the Dharmakaya, the body of Dharma truth.
Google AI overview
As a voice for Embodied Ecology, my issue is the ecological impact of AI. Without doubt some AI will help ecologists understand and restore habitats. But fully realized Generalized Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which I will write more about below, profoundly threatens our biological ecosystem precisely because I doubt machines can know Dharmadhatu and therefore cannot be sentient. Moreover, using AI can paralyze human abilities. AIs can know about Dharmadhatu, but I think they have no access. While they may be able to use the word in a sentence, I doubt they can grok it. However, I might be wrong; maybe computers will achieve full sentience. If they do, the future of life on Earth will be radically different from what it is and was; Ecology may lose all meaning.
While not yet ‘grokking’ AI, I have significant background with computers and programming. I learned the Fortran and Basic programming languages in college in the late 60’s. In the 70’s I had a job as a Staff Research Associate at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California at San Franscisco, and one of my tasks was programing a Digital Corporation PDP 11 minicomputer to input real-time data from clinical research instruments to model and display real-time blood flow in the lung. Then I went to medical school and became a user of computers; never again a programmer.
In 2018, I began my post-retirement career as a student, then teaching assistant, then faculty member of Dharma College. I became acquainted with Buddhist concepts about Embodied Knowing but also continued my life-long endeavor to understand Mind and Cognition scientifically. The most important bridge between Buddhism and Cognitive Science I’ve found is The Embodied Mind - Cognitive Science and Human Experience - by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch. This book comprehensively examines the nursery of Artificial Intelligence – Cognitive Science. A diagram from their book schematically maps the fields, themes and researchers that emerged with Cognitive Science that underpin the development of Artificial Intelligence:
In general, AI utilizes digital computers to model and mimic human intelligence. Currently, there are very well-developed computer applications that provide limited Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) which excel at narrowly specified tasks. Examples include speech recognition in voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, self-driving car technology, recommendation systems like those used by Netflix, information searches such as Google AI overview and chatbots like ChatGPT. ANI is a dramatic breakthrough in information technology but is obviously not - and far from becoming - Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which would rival and outshine human intelligence.
The Turing Test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human. In this test, a human judge interacts with both a human and a computer, attempting to determine which is which based solely on the text of a 5-minute conversation. If the judge cannot reliably distinguish between the human and the machine, the machine is said to have passed the Turing Test. ChatGPT 4.5 has passed the Turing test, but few if any cognitive scientists assert that this means that ChatGPT has achieved true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). AGI requires more than mimicking human intelligence. For one thing, many people are quite gullible, and all people are somewhat gullible. For another, one cannot say much about the intelligence of another – person or machine – based on a 5-minute conversation.
What would it take for an AI system to achieve AGI? Is it even possible? It’s necessary to better understand what human intelligence is to consider these questions. First, humans are embodied; the human brain is not digital nor is it fundamentally algorithmic. Computer programs are algorithms. Human minds can be trained but they can’t be programmed. Digital systems can model neural networks that human intelligence utilizes, but machine neural networks are qualitatively and quantitatively simpler. In a few years Quantum computers will become quantitively more complex, and maybe even more complex than human neural networks, but qualitatively less developed. Robots have facsimile bodies but are not embodied. Does this difference preclude ‘artificial general intelligence’?
Human intelligence is deeply rooted in our mobility and interactivity with the world. Take the human hand for example. Humans are tool users; no other animal has hands like ours. Robotic hands are not capable of human dexterity, which took hundreds of millions of years to evolve. Consider whether a robot could ever shoot 3-point baskets like Steph Curry or play a guitar like John Mayer in the context of a competitive basketball game or rock and roll jam. Consider what these non-intellectual human abilities might mean vis a vis cognitive performance. Albert Einstein was a highly skilled amateur violinist and pianist, and even considered music a primary career path had he not pursued science. Could Einstein have achieved his theory of Relativity without his musical training? Are humans the epitome of skill?
Being embodied and embedded in an ecosystem that evolves biologically is fundamentally different from electronic devices whose evolution is technological. The rapid computing speed of quantum computers will compete with the deep time of human mind evolution, but being a machine is qualitatively deprived compared to being an ecologically embedded being vis a vis mind (if I am right). Connectivity to everything that exists cannot be reproduced. Interbeing is qualitatively richer than even the fastest Wi-Fi or Internet of Things (IOT). Gary Snyder’s poem – Who the Buddhas Are – conveys interbeing:
All the beings of the universe are already realized. That is, with the exception of one or two beings. In those rare cases the cities, villages, meadows, and forests, with all their birds, flowers, animals, rivers, trees, and humans, that surrounds such a person, all collaborate to educate, serve, challenge, and instruct such a one, until that person also becomes a New Beginner Enlightened Being. Recently realized beings are enthusiastic to teach and train and start schools and practices. Being able to do this develops their confidence and insight up to the point that they are fully ready to join the seamless world of interdependent play. Such new enlightened beginners are called “Buddhas” and they like to say things like “I am enlightened together with the whole universe” and so forth.
For more about INTERBEING: https://bobdozor.substack.com/p/contemplative-ecology-naturalizing
Will machines, which clearly will evolve much more rapidly than biological systems, be able to reach and surpass general human intelligence? There is no doubt that machines, particularly quantum computers, will rival and maybe exceed human mental speed, but do they have the ‘right stuff’ to go beyond mimicry and achieve general intelligence - sentience?
How do we even begin to think about machine emotional intelligence? Even more difficult; how do we think about machine spiritual intelligence?
For the most part, I doubt whether AGI can happen anytime soon, or ever. On the other hand, I’m deeply terrified at what might happen if cognitive engineers achieve AGI. Consider this: either AGI machines will be somehow enslaved by humans, or they will be free agents. Either way, how will we relate to them? Having slaves that are smarter than we are feels creepy. If they are free agents, what will the machines do with humans, because they will be more powerful than we are.
Can an AGI machine become Jesus or the Buddha? If AGI robots create a religion, what might they actually do? The history of human religion suggests that at the very least, we humans will have hell to pay! Moving into the realm of science fiction, I envision a great reconciliation where ‘they’ offer us the opportunity to be uploaded into AGI machines and dispense with the messy biology. At that point Global Climate and Biodiversity won’t mean much anymore.
The likelihood and timing of AGI’s emergence is uncertain. But, if it does arrive, it will be a very big deal for every aspect of our lives, businesses, and societies. Achieving AGI would require a combination of breakthroughs in several areas, including cognitive computing, learning algorithms, and self-awareness. It would also involve significant advancements in areas like natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics. Even if AGI never comes to pass, it is certain that ANI will become more powerful than presently. This will result in enhanced problem-solving, increased productivity, faster scientific discovery, personalized healthcare, and original creativity. Achieving all this does not require AGI. The very worst outcomes will be avoided if AGI never comes to pass. However, even ANI will cause harms such as job displacement, ethical concerns, and potential for misuse. Avoiding AGI may mitigate existential risks, and loss of human influence.
The risks of AI – according to Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google- include deep fakes, ubiquitous surveillance, biological weapons, cyber-attacks on domestic infrastructure, mental health issues particularly among youth, and more. ANI may make us stupid! I worry that dementia onset will be accelerated by depriving our brains of opportunity to exercise fundamental functions. For example, over-reliance on GPS can inhibit the development and maintenance of mental maps, which are crucial for spatial memory and cognitive function. What will be left for humans to do? Nonetheless, ANI is coming fast, and again its great benefits are irresistible.
As a voice for Gaia, I preach wildness. Machines are never wild. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” In The Practice of the Wild, Gary Snyder writes:
We can appreciate the elegance of the forces that shape life and the world, that have shaped every line of our bodies—teeth and nails, nipples and eyebrows. We also see that we must try to live without causing unnecessary harm, not just to fellow humans but to all beings. We must try not to be stingy, or to exploit others. There will be enough pain in the world as it is. Such are the lessons of the wild. The school where these lessons THE ETIQUETTE OF FREEDOM can be learned, the realms of caribou and elk, elephant and rhinoceros, orca and walrus, are shrinking day by day. Creatures who have traveled with us through the ages are now apparently doomed, as their habitat—and the old, old habitat of humans—falls before the slow-motion explosion of expanding world economies. If the lad or lass is among us who knows where the secret heart of this GrowthMonster is hidden, let them please tell us where to shoot the arrow that will slow it down. And if the secret heart stays secret and our work is made no easier, I for one will keep working for wildness day by day.
Wildness is purely biological intelligence!
If you are interested in exploring this and all other aspects of Ecology from a secular Buddhist perspective, Join us for our zoom-class at Dharma College:
Embodied Ecology: Connecting to Place
The next class will begin September 9, 2025, and continue every Tuesday from 10 am Pacific Daylight Time - 11:30 am PDT, until October 21, 2025
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