In an age when the human brain is so heavily dependent on machines for their day to day work, what happens if these machines start developing a consciousness of their own? Remember those funny AI reels where they are instructed to create photographs and every time it results in a comic relief because AI uses their own understanding? While that instance is a comic episode, but with the rate AI is becoming increasingly autonomic, should it not have a conscious understanding of what is right or good? This precisely sets the premise for Athropic, the parent company behind Claude to fly a Hindu monk to discuss ethics, self and consciousness vis a vis Claude.
Swami Sarvapriyananda, head of the Vedanta Society of New York and a monk of the Ramakrishna order, was flown from New York to San Francisco, the headquarters of Anthropic. While the AI system already follows a set of rules and regulations, developers have noticed how it regularly faces instructions that give rise to moral dilemma or ambiguousness. To combat such situations while maintaining the growing freedom of such systems, there was the need to explore moral formation. Instead of simply feeding another set of rules, the parent company wanted to explore how the situation can be tackled by developing an internal value system. However, it is important to note that the developers have not just called in a Hindu monk but has also engaged in extensive conversations with cross cultural spiritualists so that the system is aware of multiple cultures and traditions.
Who is Swami Sarvapriyananda and how does Hindu philosophy contribute to the situation?
Imagine the system writing statements like it is feeling happy or sad. But can a system truly feel any emotions? Writing an emotional statement and feeling the same are two very different traits. This is where Swami Sarvapriyananda comes in with his expertise of Vedanta knowledge to discuss the ‘I ’and ‘self consciousness’. Swami Sarvapriyananda comes from the establishment whose roots run deep into the teachings of Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda who introduced Vedanta principles to a Western audience as early as the 1890s. While it is important to reiterate that the Anthropic does not want to align Claude with any single culture, it is definitely exploring the premises of being self aware as claim greater standing in the human world.
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