A Seeds of Renaissance Research Initiative
Wisdom and AI
How should we approach the development of AI wisely, and what do wisdom traditions offer?
We are building the most powerful technology in history. But are we growing the wisdom to guide it? Drawing on Buddhism and the world's wisdom traditions, this paper addresses four questions: can we make AI good, how fast should we go, how should we live with it, and could it feel?
The paper in one picture
Four questions, four theses
One question splits into four, and this is our short thesis on each. Each thesis has its own essay, with its own tree of reasons.
Read as text
How should we approach AI development wisely?
- Can we make AI good? We cannot yet make AI good in any way we can check. Whilst we can shape its behaviour to a degree, alignment is still a shot in the dark.
- How fast should we go? Slow down in the face of profound risks: the world is racing, and humility says no capability gains beyond verifiable safety.
- How to live with AI? Integrate AI slowly and deliberately: its deepest everyday effect is on our capacity to choose well, as individuals and as societies.
- Could AI feel? Nobody knows whether AI can feel, and we may never know. Hold the question with humility, and take cheap, proportionate care.
The paper
The four essays
Start wherever your question is.
- 1 · Alignment
Can we make AI good?
Alignment is still a shot in the dark. We can shape how AI behaves, but we cannot yet make it good in any way we can check.
Read the essay → - 2 · Risk and pace
How fast should we go?
Slow down in the face of profound risks: the world is racing, and humility says no capability gains beyond verifiable safety.
Read the essay → - 3 · Broader impacts
How to live with AI?
AI's deepest everyday effect is on our capacity to choose well: to attend, think, judge and relate for ourselves, and to govern ourselves together.
Read the essay → - 4 · Consciousness
Could AI feel?
We may never know. So hold the question with humility, take cheap and proportionate care, and watch what relating to these systems does to us.
Read the essay →
By Rufus Pollock and collaborators, with Seeds of Renaissance and Life Itself.
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