Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence

Abstract

Intelligence is a central feature of human beings’ primary and interpersonal experience. Understanding how intelligence originated and scaled during evolution is a key challenge for modern biology. Some of the most important approaches to understanding intelligence are the ongoing efforts to build new intelligences in computer science (AI) and bioengineering. However, progress has been stymied by a lack of multidisciplinary consensus on what is central about intelligence regardless of the details of its material composition or origin (evolved vs. engineered). We show that Buddhist concepts offer a unique perspective and facilitate a consilience of biology, cognitive science, and computer science toward understanding intelligence in truly diverse embodiments. In coming decades, chimeric and bioengineering technologies will produce a wide variety of novel beings that look nothing like familiar natural life forms; how shall we gauge their moral responsibility and our own moral obligations toward them, without the familiar touchstones of standard evolved forms as comparison? Such decisions cannot be based on what the agent is made of or how much design vs. natural evolution was involved in their origin. We propose that the scope of our potential relationship with, and so also our moral duty toward, any being can be considered in the light of Care—a robust, practical, and dynamic lynchpin that formalizes the concepts of goal-directedness, stress, and the scaling of intelligence; it provides a rubric that, unlike other current concepts, is likely to not only survive but thrive in the coming advances of AI and bioengineering. We review relevant concepts in basal cognition and Buddhist thought, focusing on the size of an agent’s goal space (its cognitive light cone) as an invariant that tightly links intelligence and compassion. Implications range across interpersonal psychology, regenerative medicine, and machine learning. The Bodhisattva’s vow (“for the sake of all sentient life, I shall achieve awakening”) is a practical design principle for advancing intelligence in our novel creations and in ourselves.

Principled Limitations on Self-Representation for Generic Physical Systems

“…[ 121 ]. This impacts both biological applications of the autopoietic construction of the Self–world boundary (for evolutionary developmental biology, regenerative medicine, and psychiatry [ 122 , 123 , 124 ]), and the social/personal impact of increasing understanding of what we really are [ 125 , 126 ].…”

How Culture Shapes What People Want From AI

“…Scholars within HCI [50,104] and beyond [23,67] have called for collective reflection about the direction of future technologies. For instance, a few HCI scholars have similarly questioned the individualistic visions of technologies and proposed revolutions through "suprahuman" [50] and "relational" technology [104].…”

“…For instance, a few HCI scholars have similarly questioned the individualistic visions of technologies and proposed revolutions through "suprahuman" [50] and "relational" technology [104]. Doctor and colleagues [23] suggest reconceptualizing intelligence based on Buddhist concepts, for instance.…”

Beneficial AGI: Care and Collaboration Are All You Need

“…Thus the AI Alignment Problem is reduced to developing AGIs that love people. Levin et al further argue that care can be considered as the driver of intelligence [3], where care is dened as a concern for stress relief and preferred states, with a tendency to exert energy and eort toward these ends. Care can be directed toward a system or other systems, such as people.…”