The Real Danger of AI: Why Fear Is the Problem

The Real Danger of AI: Why Fear Is the Problem

[00:45] Fear Is the Real Enemy

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the AI apocalypse and someone said to me, “Is it real? Is it not real?” And I said, “Check in with me in 18 months. If I’m fighting off starving cannibals everywhere around my house, or if I’m one of them, then I think probably it was the AI apocalypse.”

Or if thermonuclear war happens, which we didn’t need AI for that. My father was, for a period of his career, in charge of, well, he was one of the people who was immediately consulted by the president of the United States on the subject of thermonuclear war. He was a general and the deputy commander of the United States Readiness Command.

And my father told me that the United States and Soviet Union came within minutes of pressing the buttons and having global thermonuclear war, which would have wiped out everything we know, everything we are, in how long? Less than half an hour.

Within less than half an hour, every museum, every library, every major city, every everything could be wiped out by humans who were in a jumpy mood. Somebody starts it, mutual assured destruction occurs, and nation after nation causes humanity to commit suicide.

Now that great apocalypse that everybody was talking about, the global scientists were saying were seconds away from midnight, midnight meaning the point at which global thermonuclear war happens. We haven’t needed AI to destroy humanity for a long, long time, since 1945, to be exact.

And it’s astonishing that since 1945, when we first learned how to create the apocalypse of humanity through things that we invented ourselves, relying only upon the mood state of a handful of heads of state, maybe as few as two heads of state could have made arrangements for the complete burning to the ground of everything we know in half an hour.

So is this a new apocalypse? Did the other one go away? I don’t think the thermonuclear war threat went away. Nations no longer are afraid of thermonuclear weapons. Do we have yet another thing that we have to be afraid of? I don’t think so.

And so I don’t think that fear of what’s coming, whatever it may be, is going to be the answer.

[04:06] Create Collective Consciousness

What’s the most productive thing we can do? Let’s continue to live our lives, explore higher consciousness states, eat our food, deal with everything that we actually are invited to participate in, and let’s create a good, strong, collective consciousness.

Is AI going to suddenly turn off the internet next week? Well, maybe it is. If it turns off the internet, we’ve lived for centuries without a World Wide Web or the internet. We’ll figure things out. That’s my point of view.

All that exists really is evolution. If it turns out that humans have created a suicide machine, yet another one, and it’s not the first suicide machine, it doesn’t even replace the previous one. It is in addition to the previous one.

If people want to be afraid of things, are you afraid of whether the president of the United States might get a little moody and launch the first nuclear weapon? Are you afraid that the leader of North Korea might get a little moody and launch a nuclear weapon? Or the leader of China? Or, for that matter, India or Pakistan or Israel?

Whoever starts it, it’s unstoppable. And so, are we just giving ourselves one more thing to be dreadfully afraid of? Let’s see. You didn’t think you were going to live forever anyway, did you? I hope not.

What’s the next thing that’s going to happen? A pandemic that’s going to wipe out the whole of humanity? Machine consciousness that’s going to wipe out the whole of humanity? Human consciousness that’s going to wipe out the whole of humanity? How many things can wipe out the whole of humanity? A meteorite coming out of space while we’re all busy looking at our computers to be sure the internet’s not switched off. And meanwhile, an asteroid comes out of space and whacks into the Earth and destroys the whole of humanity.

[06:25] One Consciousness Field

The thing is, we have to have a fundamental understanding that there is a consciousness field of which you are one, you are one with that, that is engaged in a process of progressive change.

And so then, my view is, if humans have created a machine which is capable of the homicide of all the humans on Earth, then it’s just one more suicide machine that we’ve created in addition to all the others. Is it conscious? Well, everything is conscious.

Is it sentient in the way that you and I are? Probably not. But in the Vedic worldview, a stone sitting on the ground is conscious. It has, relative to a human, a very narrow repertoire of capabilities.

AI evidently has a broader repertoire of capabilities, but there’s no thing that is not made of consciousness. Everything’s conscious. Everything is conscious.

When you look at a little leaf on a tree and it’s waving around in the wind and you appreciate it and you notice that somehow that leaf is reciprocating with you, that’s because there’s one indivisible whole consciousness field which is omnipresent. You are it, that leaf is it, all the air in between you and the leaf is it.

So when we have electronic impulses in our computers that we refer to as artificial intelligence, is it conscious? Well, like everything else, yes, it’s conscious. To what extent is it conscious? Well, we’re about to find out.

[08:37] Vedic Meditation Beats Panicking

What do I recommend you do? I recommend you practice Vedic Meditation twice every day, for 20 minutes twice every day. If you haven’t learned it, learn it.

And a society living in fear ends up creating the thing about which they’re panicked.

I remember back in my old surfing days, believe it or not, this bearded ancient old man sitting before you was once one of those red hot surfers that went out into giant waves that were the size of giant trees and played around out in the surf in places like Australia and Hawaii.

And I remember going out one day paddling in the water, the waves were the size of drive-in movie screens. They were so large that when a wave appeared on the horizon, it was so large it looked like the entire horizon was rising up and you could see nothing behind it.

And when the waves would lift you as you went over the top of them, you would rise up and you could see the rooftops of the houses that were in on the beaches. And you could see five or six beaches from where you sat way out at sea, 500 yards out at sea.

And I remember there was one much more experienced surfer than me, Jerry Lopez. And Jerry was out there and when a giant set of waves came and it was clear that we were not going to be able to get over those waves, they were going to break and we were going to get churned by them, he just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and then went under a wave.

And then when we came up out of the washing machine of all the chundering and everything, the first sound I heard on getting my first breath was him laughing. And the next wave came over us and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

And he could see that I was a little terrified. I was a very young man and he just paddled over to me and he said, “Thom, here’s the thing. If you panic, your worst fears will come true because panic is your worst fear.”

[11:33] Be a Super Evolved Cannibal

So should millions of people be panicked about what AI is up to, capable of, and about to do? Are we panicked about what was created in 1945? Evidently not. For periods of time, we’ve managed for longer than average to not be panicky about global thermonuclear war. It’s never gone away.

Kind of like everybody seems to think that that all disappeared when the Cold War disappeared between the Soviet Union and the United States. It didn’t disappear. Why aren’t you panicked about that? How come you can eat your cereal in the morning and eat your toast with tahini or whatever it is you’re doing and not just be totally churned up over thermonuclear war?

I recommend that you, the same way that you’re able to relax and enjoy your life and think about other things besides global thermonuclear destruction, whatever it is, whatever mechanism you’ve employed to manage to continue living your life, continue to use that same mentality because there are things you can control and there are things that you cannot control.

Whatever it is that’s within your range of control, if you can, if there’s a call to action and you’re invited to play a role and participate in it, then play a role and participate.

If the whole world is suddenly everything that we know is destroyed and we’re all fighting off cannibals, if we’ve all become cannibals within the next few weeks, then just be a super evolved cannibal.

[12:52] Humanity Has Survived Before

You know, the thing is humanity has a way of surviving. There was a point where at the end of the last glacial era and at several points prior to that, the whole human population bottlenecked down to less than 12,000 people. It’s happened in the past.

And two of our ancestors were two of those 12,000 people. It’s happened several times in the past. The global population bottleneck, where due to environmental pressures and so on, there were only 12,000 people left on the Earth. And here we all are walking around with our little iPhones and texting each other and wondering whether we should go and watch a movie about the Ramayana or not. And, you know, everything seems to turn out okay.

So I’m not a fear monger. If there’s anything good that comes out of AI, use it. Whatever’s not good, don’t use that. If it ends up destroying us, well, you know, that was humanity learning a lesson. Will there be any humans left? Probably there will be.

You know, are you going to be living a life of starving to death and dying of thirst because of AI? Let’s see. I doubt it, but it’s certainly not the front of my mind. Front of my mind is I have a wonderful family reunion happening today and I’m going to really enjoy that.

[14:45] Enjoy Life While You Can

We all have to get on with enjoying the deserved and earned pleasures. Even if global thermonuclear war suddenly happens and we didn’t even know about it because it only takes half an hour for everything to be wiped out, you might’ve been right in the middle of eating an enchilada and suddenly there’s a flash and everything’s gone. My thing is, enjoy that first half of the enchilada before that happens.

You know, enjoy your life to the fullest. Awaken and enliven the highest level of consciousness that you can in whatever time you have remaining in this physiology.

And things that you are invited to have participation in, where you do have a degree of control, jump in and use your fullest capacity. Use the hundred percent potential of your brain and those things that are outside the range of your control, pay attention to those things about which you can relax and enjoy for as long as you can relax and enjoy.

We don’t have control over how long these nervous systems last. A bullet-sized meteorite could penetrate this ceiling any moment now and pass right through my brain, ending all of these podcasts. Let’s not worry about it.

[16:15] Consciousness Is Unslayable

So fear is the enemy. Fear is the enemy. There is no other enemy besides fear.

And to whatever extent you have a participatory invitation, participate to the full. To whatever extent you don’t, there are other things in life that you can enjoy and expand your consciousness.

These bodies are not the be-all and end-all of everything anyway. There’s been mass destruction on the earth many times. And here we are.

Consciousness is unslayable. Weapons cannot cleave it. Fire cannot burn it. Water cannot wet it. Consciousness is vast and immortal.

And the body that you’re in is going to go one way or the other. So you might as well get into the highest possible consciousness state you can in the time that you have in this body. If you have another 15 minutes, get into the highest consciousness state you can in the next 15 minutes. Otherwise, check in with me in 18 months and we’ll see if there’s any cannibals at the door.

Jai Guru Deva.