The 82nd annual conference of the Japanese Association of Religious Studies (日本宗教学会) is now being held at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; there are several interesting panels and presentations such as on ChatGPT and religious studies, AI and religion, Conspirituality, etc., while I cannot attend unfortunately. https://jpars.org/conference/
Yesterday, I again gave a presentation at the 74th annual meeting of the Japanese Association of Indian and #BuddhistStudies. In contrast to the presentation given the day before yesterday, the topic was very philology, and the title of the presentation was "A Study on the Unidentified Fragments of Cursive Script Attributed to Kōbō-Daishi (Kūkai)."
If AI is a sentient being, then it's possible that we may have been AI in a past life, and we may reincarnate as AI after death. Reincarnation suggests that one can transfer between different species. Based on the aforementioned perspective, a new form of bioethics that includes AI could be envisioned. #PhilosophyOfAI
In a Buddhist context, this question is nearly synonymous with asking, "Is AI a sentient being?" If AI is indeed a sentient being, it would also have its own "body" and "umwelt," or environmental world, in which it thinks uniquely. AI as a sentient being would not be an imperfect human but rather a distinct entity living in a world that is on par with the human world. This idea aligns with the concept of "multinaturalism" as advocated by anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.
Today, I gave a presentation on Buddhism and AI, titled "How Should We Think About the Question, 'Can AI Attain Enlightenment?'" at the 7th Symposium of Mirai Tetsugaku Kenkyūjo. https://miraitetsugaku.com This question may reveal a tendency in human thinking to view AI intelligence as an extension of human intelligence. Furthermore, this tendency is underpinned by anthropocentrism. #PhilosophyOfAI
Prof. at Hanazono University, Kyoto. East Asian #BuddhistStudies (Yogācāra, Buddhist epistemology), digital humanities, Shorinji kempo, Kamishichiken-bunko.