Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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paul
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Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by paul »

Social conditions of unemployment produced by AI have similarity to the increased leisure time as a result of the development of agriculture during the Buddha’s era, resulting in the spread of Buddhism:

http://www.wybuddhist.com/eng/conferneces_s.asp?ID=79

https://books.google.com.vn/books?id=tp ... sm&f=false
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Sam Vara
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by Sam Vara »

Yes, that sounds entirely plausible. As well as unemployment, there is underemployment; I wonder how many contributors to DW do so between tasks at work? The use of networked IT at work completely changes the relationship between work and non-work.

As well as the time and leisure factor, some historians have focused on how economic changes have produced a change in the mind-state of those participating, allowing new ideas to take root. Gombrich, for example, has speculated that prior to the agricultural revolution Buddhism would not have been able to take root because the notion of personal (i.e. kammic) responsibility would have been inconceivable to the majority of the population. And monetisation encourages the idea that we are autonomous agents rather than members of clans which ascribe duties to us on the basis of birth.

It's probably too early to say, but I wonder what mental changes are occuring now as a result of AI, and whether they are conducive to the spread of Buddhism, or the reverse?
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by User1249x »

I think humans can learn a lot from AI systems and Game Theory applied to decision making in real world.

I would say that a particular flaw of human perception is due to the vulnerable nature of the organism. It's nature is vulnerable, the mental/physical aspects of the organism just break down upon encountering what would constitute a real "streak of bad luck".

How unlucky could a normal person be? One thing is sure, it will die before it sees the end of it.

On this account most humans have a more or less irrational strategy and a dysfunctional relationship to themselves and the enviroment. Few have a comperhensive understanding. Tathagatas are perfect.

In this sense It is due to the tactical [Emotional] aspect of self-preservation that the "Long Term Expected Profit" can be ignored altogether and living just to see another day gains a higher priority than the prior.

If this is not overridden [effectively replaced] by what one can not disprove encouraging a long term strategy uncompromised by variance for decision making, that organism remains more or less irrational and less co-operative.

This is just general thoughts on how i think AI will help people l2think. Also even if established in undisputable view there is a lot of de/reconditioning to do and a lot to re-evaluate/analyze, this takes effort and vigilance otherwise one acts on old conditioning due to existance of the old "web".

Also yes i think we should all resolve on some sort of mincome and technological unemployment for people. I think it would be good for the Dhamma of course and we all can be on 10 precepts effectively if we wanted to do so for as long as wanted.
Last edited by User1249x on Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
binocular
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by binocular »

paul wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:17 pmSocial conditions of unemployment produced by AI have similarity to the increased leisure time as a result of the development of agriculture during the Buddha’s era, resulting in the spread of Buddhism:
Unemployment sure "increases leisure time", but for an unemployed person, that is anything but the sort of quality time conducive to a successful spiritual serach.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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Sam Vara wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:38 pmIt's probably too early to say, but I wonder what mental changes are occuring now as a result of AI, and whether they are conducive to the spread of Buddhism, or the reverse?
The spread of AI makes many people redundant, leaving them to feel expendable. In an effort to earn a living, they have to resort to either lowly, low-paying jobs, criminal activity; or to inventing new desires and needs and the products that supposedly fulfill them, and then convince people that they have or should have those desires and needs and that they need those products.

None of those seem like an option that would create circumstances conducive to the spread of traditional forms of Buddhism. However, some newer Buddhist movements seem to have found their niche precisely within some of those options. Whether those new Buddhist movements can actually help people to overcome suffering, is another matter.
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No_Mind
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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binocular wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:30 am The spread of AI makes many people redundant, leaving them to feel expendable.
Can you quote source on how many have been made redundant by AI? How do you know they are feeling expendable? How do you know what they feel?
In an effort to earn a living, they have to resort to either lowly, low-paying jobs, criminal activity;
How many of those who have been made redundant by AI take up lowly jobs? Define lowly jobs.

How many have turned criminals? What is your source?
or to inventing new desires and needs and the products that supposedly fulfill them, and then convince people that they have or should have those desires and needs and that they need those products.
That is your opinion


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Sam Vara
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by Sam Vara »

binocular wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:30 am
Sam Vara wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:38 pmIt's probably too early to say, but I wonder what mental changes are occuring now as a result of AI, and whether they are conducive to the spread of Buddhism, or the reverse?
The spread of AI makes many people redundant, leaving them to feel expendable. In an effort to earn a living, they have to resort to either lowly, low-paying jobs, criminal activity; or to inventing new desires and needs and the products that supposedly fulfill them, and then convince people that they have or should have those desires and needs and that they need those products.

None of those seem like an option that would create circumstances conducive to the spread of traditional forms of Buddhism. However, some newer Buddhist movements seem to have found their niche precisely within some of those options. Whether those new Buddhist movements can actually help people to overcome suffering, is another matter.
Redundancy and the social consequences you mention may well occur, but I was thinking more about the changes in our ways of thinking that AI brings. Rather like the development of autonomy, individualism, ethical worth, and responsibility which preceded the Buddha.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by chownah »

Sam Vara wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:47 pm Redundancy and the social consequences you mention may well occur, but I was thinking more about the changes in our ways of thinking that AI brings. Rather like the development of autonomy, individualism, ethical worth, and responsibility which preceded the Buddha.
I don't see how AI would help in developing these things. Can you explain further.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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The problem with this thread is AI (Artificial Intelligence) does not exist yet. Artificial intelligence is a buzzword. How can something that has not yet been invented cause us to lose jobs or change our society.

What does exist is augmented intelligence .. which is the hi-tech equivalent of a spade being used to dig instead of hands.

Is the calm mind supposed to not be speculating?

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Sam Vara
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by Sam Vara »

chownah wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:14 pm
Sam Vara wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:47 pm Redundancy and the social consequences you mention may well occur, but I was thinking more about the changes in our ways of thinking that AI brings. Rather like the development of autonomy, individualism, ethical worth, and responsibility which preceded the Buddha.
I don't see how AI would help in developing these things. Can you explain further.
chownah
Have a look at my first post on this thread. Richard Gombrich and others have made the (vaguely Marxian) point that massive economic change in the Buddha's time led to a change in the way that people thought. These changes around 2600 years ago led to the development of autonomy, individualism, ethical worth, and responsibility. My point is that given that we are living through another period of very significant economic change, it is quite likely that we are also beginning to think in different ways which have been brought about by that change. These changes are not the development of those same traits listed above (autonomy, etc...) but are only just beginning to be speculated about and reflected upon. These different ways of thinking are the things - in addition to the brute economic facts of redundancy, reskilling, increased leisure, etc. - which will have an impact upon how we view and propagate Buddhist ideas.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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If don't want to become unemployed i think in the fields that study the human condition the artificial intelligence will be assisting Humans rather than making the Human intelligence redundant.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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One good thing about growing old is one gets to have perspective. One of the first books I read as a kid in the 70s was Steps to the Stars (not the ones by Lester Del Ray)

In this book written during Gemini missions .. the author (scientist of some sort) categorically stated that missions to other planets were just around the corner .. by turn of the millenium (which was still 32 years away when the book was written) we would have colonized moon and have outposts across the solar system.

Then came space shuttle and then came retirement of space shuttle .. and the ISS is still serviced by using Soyuz rockets designed in 1967 when Steps to the Stars was written!!

We have seen many hypes .. Star Wars program (let alone Star Wars there is not even a working missile dome created yet), Virtual Reality (remember the 1994 film Disclosure which predicted there will soon be operating systems we can walk inside .. virtually that is) and hydrogen cars and artificial hearts .. I can go on.

We still use internal combustion engines .. no progress on that front .. (yes there are electric cars which moved the pollution from tail pipes to smoke stacks and are incredibly polluting if one considers how many gallons of acid is needed to extract one gram of rare metal)

Look at pain management ..

The strongest painkiller still remains the oldest one – morphine. It still remains the painkiller of choice for acute pain management such as with burn victims, traumatic loss of limb etc.

There are no other painkillers for serious pain management. No acute pain killers have been developed since morphine two centuries back.

Softer painkillers like metamizole (1920), ibuprofen (1960), COX 2 inhibitors (1990) for daily pain management were not developed keeping in mind how good they were at “killing pain” but how they affected the gastrointestinal tract and kidney and liver. The painkiller still used most is the 58 year old ibuprofen.

So painkillers being used are between 58 and 200 years old. The other popular painkiller paracetamol (acetaminophen in US) is 128 years old. No new painkiller has been developed after measuring pain in any manner.

There is currently a hype around AI .. like once there was a hype around gene therapy

It ain't happening ..

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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by User1249x »

i agree No_Mind, there is only so much one can do with computing power no matter how much. IE some things some things that took hours to solve on a computer some 5 years ago now will be solved in 1-5min. If it i became 10000x more efficient it would likely have diminishing returns at this point in terms of evolutionary gains.
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

Post by paul »

“For example, there is a 99 percent probability that by 2033 human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms. There is a 98 percent probability that the same will happen to sports referees. Cashiers — 97 percent. Chefs — 96 percent. Waiters — 94 percent. Paralegals — 94 percent. Tour guides — 91 percent. Bakers — 89 percent. Bus drivers — 89 percent. Construction laborers — 88 percent. Veterinary assistants — 86 percent. Security guards — 84 percent. Sailors — 83 percent. Bartenders — 77 percent. Archivists — 76 percent. Carpenters — 72 percent. Lifeguards — 67 percent.”

https://ideas.ted.com/the-rise-of-the-useless-class/
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Artificial intelligence produces social conditions benefiting Buddhism:

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The percentage of those humans with 'leisure time' is probably much larger now than 2500 years ago. But was it ever the case that even 30% of those long ago rich folk with free time seriously pursued liberation or buddhahood - I very much doubt it.

Today the distractions and attractions for the senses and the mind are pervasive, so again, I very much doubt more people with 'leisure' will do anything worthwhile with it.
Last edited by Nicholas Weeks on Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
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