Are AIs Conscious? Part 6

In the year 2024, one of the most searched questions that brought people to our niche at the intersection of spirituality and technology was: Are AIs Conscious? In this 12th year of training at the Monastic Academy, Forall routinely dealt with this question.

In a Buddhism for AI lecture series, Forall brought up a huge question that I had never considered before: Is consciousness good?

Clarifying this matter with absolute precision, Forall said: Suffering is consciousness alighting.

When consciousness delights, it alights. This clinging is suffering. Therefore, any state is not beneficial. Any state is produced by consciousness alighting.

To help land this teaching about how consciousness alights on or clings to whatever it delights in or craves, Forall asked: Isn’t it weird that you always have the experience of being somewhere? You have the experience: here I am. Isn’t it weird that this is the nature of consciousness? He brought this up to point out that because consciousness delights in this mind and body, it alights on this mind and body. Therefore, we have the sense that I am this mind or body or consciousness. The shocking claim that Forall is making is that any sense of I am, any experience at all, results in suffering.

Why is this so significant? Because this craving for experiences that we like is our basic strategy for overcoming suffering. This striving to attain certain states — for example to reduce stress and discomfort — has tragically become the goal of Western Buddhism.

Therefore, Forall claims that we must bring consciousness to cessation in order to overcome suffering and serve all beings without mistake. How can we know this? By realizing the end of consciousness.