AI and Spirituality: The Rise of AI and the Reminder of Who You Are | by Dael Conan

The Rise of AI

Words cannot possibly describe the meteoric rise and seemingly exponential increase of this new technology and how it’s already impacting every area of our lives whether it be chatbots for online services in the home, generative AI that can nearly effortlessly curate pictures and videos like those seen on YouTube to Large language models like GPT4 which can respond to a small specific prompt of a human and provide wondrously cultivated essays and reports to name a few examples. I know fully well I’m only scratching the surface of what I know and what we are allowed to know. I am talking here about the AI systems currently under development which nearly all of us have no idea about and that tech giants like Google, OpenAI, IBM, and Microsoft are keeping under wraps at least for now. It does feel like all of this has come out of nowhere and although we as humans are designed to be the most adaptable species we are struggling to keep pace with AI’s advance adding more uncertainty and apprehension to our increasingly changing world. 

Dear reader, let's be completely open and honest with each other. We have both seen the potential dangers, whether actual or hypothetical, surrounding AI and its use.  I'll list some of them below.

Actual:

• Use of AI systems for financial fraud.
• The manufacture of new and illicit drugs via generative AI including GPT-4.()
• Major Military powers creating autonomous mobile weapon systems especially drones

Hypothetical: 

• Rokos Basilisk: A truly terrifying thought experiment that could never realistically happen but is definitely worth a look (but please view it with a very open mind from both opposing perspectives)(https://duckduckgo.com/?q=roko%27s+basilisk&pn=1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dut-zGHLAVLI)
• Terminator Style scenario: Although this is featured in fiction, this is now more widely spoken about, especially with concepts like AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) being theoretically possible thereby becoming self-aware, viewing collective humanity as a threat and destroying us all.
• Transhumanism: This one scares me most and I do feel is being pushed onto human society, especially in the West whereby we replace aspects of our own biology with technology thereby compromising, severing, and eliminating that which makes us human whether biologically or mentally. I personally don’t feel this will come to ultimate fruition for reasons I will highlight in the next section.

A Reminder of Who You Are

I will put this as simply and as plainly as I can for you dear reader based on my own point of view and if it resonates with you then you were meant to read this article, if not then just read with an open mind and more importantly an open heart.

You are a spiritual being undergoing a physical experience. An individual expression of God, the universe or the divine (whichever or whatever you perceive) to know, love and improve yourself, others and the wider world in your own unique way. You have a spark of the divine within you or a piece of personality if you will of God itself. As a creator, everything you feel, think and most importantly do influences your existing reality and creates new ones.

 Please breathe and allow this paragraph to sink in for a second if this is completely new to you. Your next question is what does AI have anything to do with this?

The Rewiring of Your Mind 

The first truth we must accept is that AI is here for better or for worse. It's already such an integral part of our lives and yes we have had almost no say as to its implementation and even worse ethics is still far behind its relentless march of advancement. The second truth is that at an individual level, this has been completely beyond our control. The ancient stoics would say never worry about what we cannot control but what we can and/or how we respond to such things.

I will now hit you with three groundbreaking insights that will completely rewire your mind in such a way that you view reality and yourself in a seemingly new way.

• Insight of Fear: You remember me stating in the first section about the concept of transhumanism and how AI is an integral part of that. Simplistically speaking I personally believe that AI is being rolled out by very influential and powerfully placed people within Finance, Corporations, and Governments as a form of population control and surveillance in accordance with UN Agenda 2030 and other similar mandates without any consent or respect to the divine sovereignty of human beings. What this means for us spiritually as a species is the potential that if we fully incorporate technology into our very biological and mental aspects, then we will never reconnect with the divine because our consciousness will be dumbed down to the point of near or no non-perception of anything beyond our five sense reality. I would go into more details but I have no desire to feed the energy of this fear any further, plus I can also leave it to your imagination dear reader.
• Insight of Hope: My insight of hope is that as expressions of God, we are endowed with free will and freedom of choice as to how to respond both as individuals and as a wider human collective.  If we make the correct wholesome choices especially if we are more spiritually empowered and mentally self-aware then we create our own reality to one where a nightmare like this could never happen. We can then continue to be as free as we choose to love, learn, grow, explore, and elevate ourselves. This is also an extension to the wider world and the limitless universe itself because with freedom of choice comes the limitless possibility to create the reality of your choosing. A paradise or a prison.
• Insight of empowerment: This is a summary that no matter what happens, you ultimately have the freedom to choose as a truly unique and divine spiritual being what future you create with AI. I ask that you learn intellectually about AI but also go inwards and explore yourself and the totality of who you are as a single shard of God’s personality and realize that there is nothing and no one in the universe like you (This applies to all reading this). Remember AI itself is a manifestation of ourselves so perhaps it too is divine.

 Dael Conan is pursuing a Level 4 Data Fellowship with the John Lewis Partnership and is based in Milton Keynes, UK.