Rajiv Malhotra talks about Artificial Intelligence, how it may help the material progress of the society but also create a society of morons. Click on the image to watch 'AI may help create happy morons' (7:41) video excerpts from ‘AI and Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness Theory’. Transcript of the video is given below.
Radhe, Integral Life Center: We are extremely honored to have with us today our esteemed speaker Rajiv mahotra. Welcome Rajiv. Thank you! He is the author of the well-known book Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power. Artificial Intelligence is only partially visible just like an iceberg and to understand it fully we must look beneath the surface. Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power is a wake up call to action compelling public intellectuals to be better informed and more engaged. We certainly would encourage all of you to read his book if you have not to date. With that we'd like to go ahead and hand it over to you [Rajiv].
Rajiv Malhotra: Namaste everybody. Thank you for inviting me. Vladimir and I have known each other since I think late 90s. My Foundation did a lot of projects in Pondicherry and Auroville on many fronts and Vladimir and I have collaborated on some of the works that we did. So I'm delighted when he called me some couple of years ago that he's moved to South Carolina and we discussed ways of staying in touch more closely and I'm very glad that he invited me to share my perspective on Artificial Intelligence.
This book Artificial Intelligence and the future of power - Five Battlegrounds, this came out a few years ago and at that time people were not ready but I started talking about it in 2015, 2016, so about 10 years ago. Battleground Four is where I think the Sri Aurobindo people and the Integral Yoga, Integral Psychology people will be most interested. I call it the battle for self. Who am I am and in what ways I am autonomous, in what ways I am my own adhyatma, my own inner being versus being controlled and giving up that control because it's very tempting, it's very exciting. Now you see, we talked a little bit already about the control the algorithms and AI systems exert upon you from the outside but these are still external devices like I'm sitting in front of a laptop. When I start wearing goggles [Virtual Reality Headset] now it's even more close to me, now I'm immersed. Now I'm moving around thinking that this guy is here I'm talking to him I'm touching I'm picking up this thing from the shelf in a store, I'm really in involved. I'm immersed and this world is a direct encounter between me and my environment so I'm actually living a whole life in a metaverse okay and I could be living in it all the time or much of my time. I could get entertainment, I could do my banking, I could do my shopping, I could have holidays, I could imagine I'm going to such and such place, having a holiday because I paid and bought it but actually it's a virtual immersion experience.
So that's the next level but that's not enough, that's not close enough for them. Implants in the brain which is real which is coming - it's not just Elon Musk's company but the Chinese are doing it, the Pentagon is doing it. There are just three or four major organizations again it's a concentration of power that are developing these such that the the the implant is able to recognize a burst of neurons and say this burst is happiness for this guy, this burst is sadness, this burst means he is angry, this pattern of neurons means he's likely to get violent, this burst means that the idea I gave he is happy with or not happy with. So being able to correlate the pattern of neuron with what are your emotions, what are your thoughts, what's likely to be happening gives this ability not only to read what's happening but also to influence it. Now how will this be sold? It will be sold very nicely. It will get FDA approval and government approval and popular approval because the first application will be for your good. It will be able to look at patterns that predict heart attack. So, it'll be good because, wow!, we can tell if you're going to have a heart attack or if you're going to have a stroke or something like that and health issue and we're going to alert and get an ambulance and maybe you know inform your loved [ones], your near and dear, a doctor. So we're going to save lives. And who would mind it? Everybody would like it. Another application maybe controlling violent behavior. So there is a criminal and he's released now and one condition of being released is he has to wear this thing so that if he if he's about to get violent or about to rape somebody or something this thing will predict and alert and maybe get some help. It could also be for mental health. If somebody has a bipolar then you know wearing this could be a good solution because if you are about to have a fit and about to do something wrong maybe commit suicide this thing will stop you. So, medically it could be very useful in terms of crime control and behavior control and violence control. It could be very useful in Mental Health Management. These are the kind of applications which are good for everybody under which the whole implanting technology will become popular and who would not want it? Government might even require it that you If you are a violent person and we want to release you on condition that we have to monitor you so this is how we're going to monitor you.
So, once the technology becomes accepted then then other applications come. We can sell you entertainment, fantasy. You could have fantasy sex by having this kind of experience inside you. You could have a holiday, you could imagine that you're going down the Niagara Falls and there's all this water this mist coming at you, and this wind, and it's so exciting. It's like the real stuff or you are falling, you're coming down on a parachute or something and you're having that experience virtually. So this business of faking your senses, giving your senses an experience which is not actual stimulation from the external indiriyas. It is like artificial indiriyas, they are giving you this experience so this will be a great entertainment and on and on, you could end up creating a generation where you can decide how happy they are, how sad they are, who gets pushed… You push a button and keep him happy all the time. So you will be able to create happy morons and I use that I explained that in this book. Happy morons which means the person is really not that smart not that knowledgeable not that involved in all these things but he's full of himself. They've beefed up his ego and he thinks a lot about himself and they're keeping him happy. So this kind of a society. I predict a stage after that - which I don't want to get into - you need to read it for yourself but I'm predicting what will this happy moron state of affairs lead to, what kind of a society are we heading toward.
Also watch: Rajiv Malhotra on 'Conscious use of AI'