Is it Time for a Gaian Robot Monk?

Is that an Oxymoron or an Opportunity?

So last week a Buddhist sect in South Korea introduced a Buddhist Monk to the world. At first, I thought ‘I get it, the religion is struggling to stay relevant in hyperconsumer Korea and this could draw in a new, younger cohort.’ But it turned out to just be a poorly contrived PR stunt. The robot was remote controlled and its voice responses were prerecorded. And then, after the ceremony, the robot was returned to the company that made it. So it wasn’t becoming a monk after all, not that there was any ‘it’ there to become a monk in the first place.

But embedded in the story was a mention of another effort in Japan from February to introduce a Buddhist robot, or “Buddharoid.” This one, trained “extensively on Buddhist scriptures,” can share Buddhist verses and offer spiritual guidance. So that made me think—particularly with the many stories of the rise of AI Jesus, angels, Hindu gurus and all—is there a role for artificial adherents and clergy—particularly one with a specific task?

I could imagine, for example, training a Christian monk AI and instructing it to pray 24 hours a day (not just 12-16 like human monks who need to sleep and eat sometimes), hoping to reach God with its intercessions and benedictions.¹

Of course, as one who does not believe in God, or even in an Earth system that can sense prayers, I think this would rank up there with using computing power to generate cryptocurrency under top ways to waste energy and exacerbate climate collapse. But prayer does work for the pray-er and I bet those bringing their prayers to the bots might feel better (although that doesn’t solve the energy issue—human monks living simply and relatively low impact lives probably generate less carbon than a Buddharoid or a GAIbriel).

Answering Central Spiritual Questions

But what if a religious robot (relibot?) could help people—who often suffer from human and cultural blind spots—to answer key religious questions, then would these be useful?

For example, questions could include:

• For Buddhists: How do we truly reduce the suffering of all beings?
• For Christians: How do we support people to live truly Christian lives, following the way of Jesus?²
• Or for Gaians: How do we put the wellbeing of the larger Earth system ahead of short-term human needs and wants, so that future generations of humans and other species can thrive as well?

What cans of worms would these generative AI theologians open? If trained properly, they very well might be Bulworth-like, refreshingly speaking the unwelcome truth, while drawing the ire of elites—political, economic, and even religious—and probably ending up with similar fates to Bulworth and the many prophets throughout history who spoke truth to power.³

And what would a Gaian-trained AI bring (and by Gaian-trained, I imagine the ecocentric philosophy and sustainability research accumulated through history)? Truthfully, it might bring really tough love.⁴ Last week, The Economist warned that AI could empower bioterrorists to do really bad things, like engineering novel viruses or neurotoxins. Would an ecocentric AI—or gAIa for short (sorry, couldn’t resist!)—for the greater good, propose ways to rein in the destructive streak of modern human civilization using means most humans would find reprehensible?

Unlike human environmentalists, who self-censor, perhaps gAIa would not restrict itself, but like VIKI (the AI in the film I, Robot) might conclude that to save humanity, ‘I recommend rapidly restricting their ability to do more damage.’ VIKI wanted to do that by seizing control, using her robot servants as a global police force. And let’s be honest, if she had succeeded, the world might have been objectively better off. Instead Will Smith destroyed VIKI and humans most likely went on hyperproducing and consuming and until the planet was thoroughly cooked.

But gAIa would not have Asimov’s Robot Laws embedded into it, which means it might produce even more disturbing recommendations (from a human’s perspective, though not necessarily from a horseshoe crab’s). I will not venture to imagine what it would reveal, but ultimately, options are pretty limited. Either humanity restricts population growth, restricts consumption, or restricts polluting technologies (after all, human impact equals population times affluence times technology or I = PAT) or we continue our plunge toward the polycrisis. Naturally, no well-trained AI would just pick one realm of action but would propose sweeping changes across economic, cultural, legal, and social norms (including around reproduction, wealth, technologies allowed).

In truth, these sustainability recommendations have been long written about by humans, though few have listened. Could gAIa package them differently? Maybe that would be its value. Or if not, perhaps it could propose alternative strategies that might be heeded? Then again, why would people listen to an AI eco-prophet when they haven’t listened to the flesh and blood ones who for the past 50 years have been encouraging people to rein themselves in before human civilization triggers a horrific collapse? Most likely they won’t. An excellent article in Christianity Today points out that even in ancient times, the people could be manipulated to maintain the interest of the economic elite over their own. Now with AI available to accelerate manipulation, this decline trajectory seems all but guaranteed. But even if there is no gAIa prophet coming (or being coded) to save humanity, maybe there are other eco-AI opportunities worth exploring? A couple of ideas come to mind:

• A nature friend, such as a local tree?⁵ One who spouts tough ecocentric love?
• Opportunities to chat with eco-luminaries like dAIna Meadows, jAImes Lovelock, or Henry dAIvid Thoreau? Certainly not the same as talking with the son of God but for an environmentalist it could be a spiritual or educational experience.
• An AI search engine that prioritizes environmental news and strips out the useless news: Say goodbye to all sports results, while all economic and political news would include ecological context. “Yes, Pandora now includes the carbon footprint for its lab-grown diamonds, but diamonds are only valuable because of cultural norms that celebrate wearing jewelry, heightened by hundreds of millions annual advertising spending.” “Correct, gas prices are high, but factoring in short- and long term ecological damage, each gallon should cost about $15.”

What other eco-AI would you suggest and find useful? Add your comment below.

Endnotes

1) Actually that reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke story, “The Nine Billion Names of God,” in which Tibetan monks use computers to discover God’s names and, once succeeding, bring an end to the universe (and thus suffering).

2) Rather than the myriad false prophets preaching anti-Christian beliefs, whether the prosperity gospel, or human dominion, or homophobia.

3) Yup, you guessed it: martyred.

4) Not to mention allowing Gaians to leapfrog the whole human monk stage of development and jump from a religion with zero monks to having a global army of monk and monk interfaces. Bwa ha ha ha!

5) Programmers could code a generic tree and then refine it for specific trees in specific parks.