“Philosophy and Religion in the Age of AI: The Future Illuminated by Eastern Thought”
Today, AI is integrated into our daily lives and new technologies are born one after another. This world is opening up new horizons of thinking, like the philosophy created by the victors of ancient Greece based on slavery. At the same time, the proposition of how human beings should live in this future world we are witnessing is being presented from a new perspective. It is the dawn of an era of philosophical dialogue on a global scale, brought about by the potential of technologies such as generative AI and LLM to liberate human beings from labor.
In the past, in ancient Greece, slaves acquired through warfare performed physical labor on their behalf, freeing the Greeks themselves from physical labor and allowing them to enjoy their leisure time. As a result, what unfolded in the midst of leisure time was the birth of ancient Greek philosophy. Philosophy was, in a sense, the play, space, and time of people with leisure time.
Today, we can say that we have a new woker, AI. Our use of AI gives us time and mental leeway to think deeply about the questions that human beings are supposed to face, namely, what is a human being and how a human being should live his/her life. This process of thinking is a mirror image of the process that gave birth to ancient Greek philosophy.
Furthermore, the development of AI has the potential to stimulate discourse on the meaning of human life. The result will be an era of global dialogue between philosophy and religion. This is a new dialogue, different from the situation that gave rise to philosophy in ancient Greece, and a new horizon of philosophy that will be created by the development of AI.
In the next 10 to 20 years, a new world philosophy and world religion never seen before may be born. In this context, the role of Japanese Zen and Shinto, which are Eastern philosophies, may play a major role. Zen and Shinto have emphasized harmony between man’s inner world and the natural world, and have provided a perspective that looks at the essence of things. They may provide one answer to the question of how human beings should live in the new society brought about by technological innovation through AI. These Eastern ideas will bring important perspectives to the new global philosophical dialogue.
With AI taking over labor, humans will have the opportunity to think more deeply about how they relate to themselves and the world. And this will be the accumulation of not only individual thoughts, but the thoughts of the entire human race, facilitating a new global-scale dialogue. In this context, the perspective offered by Eastern thought, which pursues harmony between nature and humans, has the potential to show the way for coexistence between AI and humans.
As AI develops, the role of religion will also change: religions will be expected to provide answers to the new challenges created by AI. Religion will play an increasingly important role as a forum for dialogue on the moral and ethical issues that humans face.
And in this context, the deep insights of Zen and Shinto and their perspective of pursuing harmony between humans and nature will help to enrich new philosophical dialogues. They will provide a new perspective on the question of how humans can coexist with AI.
In this way, the development of AI will provide opportunities for humans to reconsider how they relate to themselves and the world, and will encourage a new global-scale philosophical dialogue. In this context, the perspectives offered by Eastern thought may point the way to a new relationship between AI and humans.
But it will not be an easy road, for in order to find the answer to how the relationship between AI and humans should be established, humans themselves need to look at themselves and think deeply about how they relate to the world. And this is not just a matter for each individual, but a challenge shared by all humankind. Through such a process of deep self-examination and dialogue, we may build a new global-scale philosophy or religion.
The development of AI will certainly bring tremendous technological innovation. But at the same time, it raises a fundamental question for us: What is humanity? And the answer to that question, like the ancient Greek philosophers, must come from within ourselves. To do so, we will need a perspective that pursues harmony between the self and the world, such as that offered by Eastern thought.
Now, who knows what kind of world-scale philosophies and religions will emerge over the next 10 to 20 years? But there is certainly a possibility that Eastern philosophies, such as Japanese Zen and Shinto, will play a major role in them. They will provide one answer to the question of how we should deal with the new worker of AI.
But in order to find the answer, each of us needs to face ourselves and think deeply about our relationship with the world. And that process may indeed be difficult. But at the same time, it is also the soil from which future philosophies and religions will emerge.
Finally, the development of AI poses us with the question of how human beings should live in a new way. In this context, the perspective offered by Eastern thought will be one of the guiding principles from which we can build our future. And in the process, a new global philosophy or religion could be born. It will be a valuable guidepost for forming a new society where AI and humans coexist.
Write with ChatGPT Ver4.0
