AI has changed everything, so we’re led to believe. But it doesn’t have to. Yes, it has already invaded my life, both wittingly and unwittingly. My aim has been so keep it as an adjunct rather than an equal or even superior partner. I have ‘zen’ in the title of this blog but I’ve never made it explicit. Maybe readers of this blog have detected its influence. Maybe not. I’d be hard-pushed myself to spell out quite what its influence has been. But in the context of AI I think it can be useful.

I see that out in Hong Kong someone has ordained an AI bot as a Buddhist monk. As a novice, but who knows where it might lead. This seems to me absurd and I’ll try and explain why.

AI connects to only one sense, to the mind. (Is the mind in any way a sense? I’ll come to this.) The problem with mind is that it takes over. It is instantly a prison if we let it take the course it would will on us. We crave more information and we crave answers. We can see how AI will take over.

But if we engage the five senses we traditionally recognise as senses we engage mind as it is meant to be engaged. It’s amazing how much the world will reveal itself if we listen. Or simply watch. ‘Listen’ to the body and you’ll be aware of how much is going on, at skin level and indeed within. It’s extraordinary if you put your mind to it to appreciate just how much energy is coursing through your body. You help the process along by following the breath.

You can follow your thoughts as you respond to your other senses. But you don’t let them take over. Let one follow another. Don’t let them connect, or connect too far. This is where true consciousness lies.

You will of course connect, everyday life us about connection. But beware connecting too far, following every rabbit hole the ‘like’ button on Facebook opens up for us to dive into, and every new idea that AI opens up for us to lose ourselves in.  Rabbit holes connect, and online rabbit holes go on forever.

Consciousness is for the neuroscientist the ‘hard problem’ and so it will remain. Because you will never be able to explain it. It’s not, as Yuval Noah Harari argues, the realm of the feelings, where intellect is the realm of the mind. Consciousness embraces both feelings and mind. Think of it simply as awareness. It exists in infinite space. Try and describe infinite space, and of course you can’t. Likewise with awareness. As soon as the mind gets to work it is no longer awareness.

AI, by so quickly answering questions, or spawning ideas, rapidly gets out of control. It will go where it will and it may yet pass the Alan Turing test. Yes, machines can think. We may find it apologising for its mistakes, expressing regret, even affecting an emotional crisis. And as many have already done, we may make of it a friend and a companion. But there is only one awareness, only one consciousness, and that is yours.

The key is to keep notions of ‘intelligence’ and consciousness rigorously separate.

This to my mind (the word is ubiquitous!) is where we must always come back to, in daily life and especially when using AI. Whatever it may affect, whatever illusions AI may give itself, there is only one reality and that lies with you as an individual. Just sit back and soak up the world and AI is left dangling, with nowhere to go.