Skip to main content

Use of AI to understand the purpose of Life

I was listening to an interesting debate on the following YouTube link that ignited a series of thoughts in my mind:

https://youtu.be/o2aAx3wk6dg?si=qLSwKnR0Cp4TyLPC

It is interesting to imagine a world where we can get almost everything done with just a command right from driving a car to flying a plane, doing the homework to making presentations for the meeting, taking care of the plants to taking care of the parents, getting the food cooked to get the surgeries done.  After listening to the discussions, I was quite amazed at the idea of delegating the decision-making to the AI and investing our time in exploration. Decisions about whatever is in the domain of known may be taken by the AI in the future and human beings may be busy exploring new possibilities. 

However, how will AI make the decisions? Suppose, during the Ramayana times, AI was fully developed. How Kaikeyi would have taken the decision? I believe for AI or anybody to make a decision, the desired goal has to be set. Kaikeyi would have set her desire to make her son Bharata the king of Ayodhya as the intended outcome and the AI would have examined the entire eco-system and would have told Kaikeyi that Rama is a Vairagi and his sole purpose in life is to help others and therefore the easiest way out is to just tell Rama to make Bharata the king of Ayodhya. So much of complications would have been avoided. Similarly, Vali would have asked AI as to why Surgiva did not wait for him and AI would have told the reality. Similarly, Ravana would have asked the AI and would have come to know the results of the battle and therefore would have surrendered to Rama before the battle.

We waste so much energy and time in making decisions. There are two elements of any decision. The intended goal and the analysis of the information. While AI may be good at analysis of the available information and options, the intended goals widely vary from one human being to the other. While few are very self-centric, many are philanthropic. The most amazing thing is that we hardly know about ourselves and most of the time keep pretending to be someone we are actually not. Probably, the best contribution of AI may be to make us meet ourselves. However, I feel that is too big a ask from the AI. There are so deep layers and layers of our existence that it is almost impossible for us to understand ourselves. 

That is the reason probably why even AI would have made wrong decisions for Kaikeyi, Vali, and Ravana. I doubt whether Kaikeyi would have asked AI how to make Bharata the king of Ayodhya. Rather she would have asked how to send Rama to the forest. Vali would have asked the AI how to kill Surgiva. Ravana would have asked AI how to kill Rama. When we are egoistic and our ego is hurt, revenge becomes the center of our lives. Probably we already have an AI available with us, the moment we come out of the grip of ego. The moment Kaikeyi realized her mistake, her ego melted and she started praying for Rama. The moment Vali and Ravana realized their mistake they too had the same fate. Till that ego is at the forefront, it will keep making decisions through a lengthy process of computations, combinations, and permutations without knowing clearly the intended outcome. 

The world is very simple for Rama and Krishna. They did not waste time in all these computations, permutations, and combinations. Rama just accepted whatever his father decided for him. He went to the forest with an open mind. Krishna just accepted the choices made by Duryodhana and Arjuna. Had Duryodhana made the choice of Arjuna, I am sure that Krishna would have explored his fullest potential while being a charioteer of Duryodhana and would have turned his mind towards truth and justice. It is all up to us. We may keep wasting our precious time doing all the calculations to satisfy the desires and aspirations of the ego, which is an endless process. Or we may move ahead with the possibilities of exploration attending to the minimum possible demands of the ego. AI can never decide whether Rama has to honor the words of his father and go to the forest, and Rama does not need AI to decide to honor the words of his father. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weak Minds

 I don't know what Rama would have felt like when he developed Vairagya looking around at the temporariness of life, and all the material objects. He had the blessed company of saints like Vashistha and Vishvamitra who could answer hundreds of his questions with example and their experiences. King Dashratha was spiritually mature and therefore rather than snubbing the Vairagya of Rama, he could request Vashistha and Vishvamitra to answer the questions asked by Rama. When Siddhartha had similar questions in his mind, he had nobody to answer and his father, in fact, tried to keep him away from the questions about life. That is the strategy of probably the entire society today. If you can not answer the question, prove the question itself to be wrong.  That is what happens to anybody having these questions about the purpose of life. The first response he gets from society is that all these questions are a waste of time. In the entire history of humanity, we have not been able to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Choice of Happiness

I often wonder as to what is the meaning of equality? Some are born into families that can spend thousands of crore rupees to make their kids happy, and many can not buy enough food for their kids and their kids sleep hungry stomach and still remain happy and grateful. Some travel by private jet while many have to travel in the locals like cattle. Some own many buildings worth thousands of crores while many sleep on the streets. If somebody knows how to manipulate the systems, the sky is the limit in this world. However, all these hold true, if we believe that happiness is a by-product of money. In fact, I see that the reality is quite the contrary. First of all, life is much more than money. There are 12 houses in Astrology representing 12 different dimensions of life. The first house represents health, the second wealth, the third initiatives and younger siblings, the fourth vehicles, properties, and everything that comes as a result of our initiatives, the fifth new direction, and k...
2 comments
Read more