The Integral Stage | The Soul of AI (Ep. 1: Soryu Forall) @theintegralstage8140 | Uploaded April 2023 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
The question of the promise and peril of AI is a proper one for our long-running Love the System series, but we thought it deserved its own spot as a sub-series due to the rapid development and proliferation of Large Language Models and other ground-breaking AI technologies over the past six months. It may be too early to tell yet, but with the clear power of this emergent technology, its potential to take over many of the tasks we used to regard as exclusively human, and its rapid public uptake, it feels like we are on the cusp of an epochal change. How are we to secure the psychological and spiritual health of human beings in the face of such developments? How do we ethically and wisely merge living and non-living intelligences? What wisdom from this corner of the internet -- from our respective integral, metamodern, and spiritual communities -- can help us navigate the monumental challenges and opportunities ahead?
For the inaugural episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with Soryu Forall, an ordained Zen monk and the head teacher at the Monastic Academy in Vermont, to talk about the ethical and spiritual challenges that confront us with the advent of this civilization-transforming, and potentially civilization-destroying, technology. Soryu discusses what he sees as an emerging (fanatical) religion of data-ism, the compulsion to summon a digital superintelligence or deity at all costs, and the existential risks this poses; and together they explore the concept of the "cybergregore, and the potential to build an Artificial Wisdom system to temper, balance, and constructively direct AI.
Soryu Forall has decades of intensive monastic training, a degree in Economics from Williams College, and extensive experience in social and environmental justice. As a teen, upon learning that monasteries are built for such a purpose, he traveled to Japan in order to study suffering and the end of suffering. Forall was ordained in 1998 at Sogen Temple under the tutelage of the Zen Master Shodo Harada. After training at Sogen Temple for five years, Forall trained further at Hemis Gompa, a Kagyud Tibetan monastery in northern India; Xue Feng Si, an ancient Ch’an monastery in eastern China; and at the Sariputta Ambedkar Monastery in southern India, where he served as head monk (Ambedkar Buddhism is an influential sect that defines spiritual training as social engagement and economic justice). While there, he led peaceful protests and organized community efforts to overcome the injustice of the caste system. He also helped to raise thirty boys with the understanding that all are inconceivably valuable, regardless of family circumstance. Forall, a native Vermonter, returned to his home state in 2008 and has continued to fight against systemic injustice and promote youth empowerment. He has created successful curriculum for mindfulness in education, trained professional mindfulness teachers all over the world, worked with high level athletes and business people on using mindfulness for high performance, and founded the Center for Mindful Learning, where he currently serves as President and head teacher. At the Monastic Academy Soryu dedicates his life to creating the next generation of awakened leaders.
The Monastic Academy
monasticacademy.com
Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom!
https://hello.fathom.fm/
Remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!
patreon.com/theintegralstage
Special thanks and big love to Shai Newman, the LIMITED HANGOUT guys, Brandon LaChance, Mike McElroy, Brandon Norgaard, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Francesca, and all of our other Patreon supporters!
The question of the promise and peril of AI is a proper one for our long-running Love the System series, but we thought it deserved its own spot as a sub-series due to the rapid development and proliferation of Large Language Models and other ground-breaking AI technologies over the past six months. It may be too early to tell yet, but with the clear power of this emergent technology, its potential to take over many of the tasks we used to regard as exclusively human, and its rapid public uptake, it feels like we are on the cusp of an epochal change. How are we to secure the psychological and spiritual health of human beings in the face of such developments? How do we ethically and wisely merge living and non-living intelligences? What wisdom from this corner of the internet -- from our respective integral, metamodern, and spiritual communities -- can help us navigate the monumental challenges and opportunities ahead?
For the inaugural episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with Soryu Forall, an ordained Zen monk and the head teacher at the Monastic Academy in Vermont, to talk about the ethical and spiritual challenges that confront us with the advent of this civilization-transforming, and potentially civilization-destroying, technology. Soryu discusses what he sees as an emerging (fanatical) religion of data-ism, the compulsion to summon a digital superintelligence or deity at all costs, and the existential risks this poses; and together they explore the concept of the "cybergregore, and the potential to build an Artificial Wisdom system to temper, balance, and constructively direct AI.
Soryu Forall has decades of intensive monastic training, a degree in Economics from Williams College, and extensive experience in social and environmental justice. As a teen, upon learning that monasteries are built for such a purpose, he traveled to Japan in order to study suffering and the end of suffering. Forall was ordained in 1998 at Sogen Temple under the tutelage of the Zen Master Shodo Harada. After training at Sogen Temple for five years, Forall trained further at Hemis Gompa, a Kagyud Tibetan monastery in northern India; Xue Feng Si, an ancient Ch’an monastery in eastern China; and at the Sariputta Ambedkar Monastery in southern India, where he served as head monk (Ambedkar Buddhism is an influential sect that defines spiritual training as social engagement and economic justice). While there, he led peaceful protests and organized community efforts to overcome the injustice of the caste system. He also helped to raise thirty boys with the understanding that all are inconceivably valuable, regardless of family circumstance. Forall, a native Vermonter, returned to his home state in 2008 and has continued to fight against systemic injustice and promote youth empowerment. He has created successful curriculum for mindfulness in education, trained professional mindfulness teachers all over the world, worked with high level athletes and business people on using mindfulness for high performance, and founded the Center for Mindful Learning, where he currently serves as President and head teacher. At the Monastic Academy Soryu dedicates his life to creating the next generation of awakened leaders.
The Monastic Academy
monasticacademy.com
Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom!
https://hello.fathom.fm/
Remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!
patreon.com/theintegralstage
Special thanks and big love to Shai Newman, the LIMITED HANGOUT guys, Brandon LaChance, Mike McElroy, Brandon Norgaard, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Francesca, and all of our other Patreon supporters!
