Notes on Alan Watts, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Love
Or, wouldn't it be nice if AI turned out to be the answer to all of society's problems?
It rained last weekend in Austin, and I took a break from promoting my new memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, to sit leisurely on balcony with my dog Tommy. I sipped too much coffee and went down various rabbit holes in books, podcasts, and YouTube videos. I found myself revisiting three topics which, on the surface, seemed disparate: Alan Watts, whose recorded lectures I'd consumed like beer and psych meds when I was younger, the concept of Love, as taught by the great wisdom teachers of yore; and artificial intelligence, or AI.
I didn't discover Watts till my thirties, but once I did, he opened my mind to new, vaster ways of seeing myself and the universe. Along with the Jesus of my youth, Ram Dass, and Jack Kornfield, Watts was a gateway drug into spiritual life. And today, I still lean on his recorded lectures when I notice that I'm getting overly serious about my life or spiritual path. I appreciate his coyote-like knack for contradicting himself and all religious and/or social evangelists who project absolutism and certainty about how life works.
The first Watts lecture I listened to last weekend was a classic about Taoism and how humans tend to get in our own way. Next, I listened to a Watts lecture about Carl Jung and the importance of humans working with our shadows.
As the rain fell harder and Tommy shifted from lying on his side to his back, I clicked on a recorded lecture called, simply, Love. I began to scribble down notes.
Love is a mysterious word to me, and I suspect I'm not the only person for whom this is true. Every great religion teaches that Love and compassion are the keys to living a good life and having a decent society. I've been working at spirituality long enough to know that these "love" teachings are anything but easy. They are high-level teachings that very few humans master, despite the abundance of love songs and poems that have been written throughout history.
The toxic, patriarchal society we've built is all the proof one needs to see that humans have NOT mastered these high-level teachings. Hell, Austin's highway underpasses, inhabited by the most oppressed and mentally ill of us, prove that humans have light years to travel before becoming experts in Love or compassion.
Watts knew much about Eastern and Western spirituality. He also was a keen observer of the human condition. But as intelligent, illuminating, and entertaining as he was, I noticed that Watts didn’t exude Love when he spoke about it. I detected an inevitable loneliness in his sardonic spiritual rants. And his death from radical alcoholism suggests he wasn't as comfortable in his skin as he might have had us believe. But what do I know? I know him only from his wonderful memoir, In My Own Way, and his many recorded talks.
That said, Watts had a natural gift for stirring up deep thoughts about religion, culture, business, and life. He had a way of cutting through the bullshit concepts we use to separate ourselves from life. He could make a person feel downright silly for buying into the American dream of working a 40-hour week and spending evenings binge-watching Netflix and not seeking more joy and meaning in life.
Listening to his lectures last weekend, I wished Watts were here today to comment on the developing news about Artificial Intelligence.
Watts wasn’t impressed with the technological advances and computers of the 1960s. He found machines profoundly uninteresting compared to humans and the universe.
I'm not sure, but I suspect he would hold a similar stance about AI and all the hype around it if he were alive today.
Me? I'm still getting a handle on what AI is. I’m a novice. I've played with ChatGPT and read several longer articles about the latest development in AI. I understand the terms AGI (Generative AI) and neural networks, the particular "style" of AI that is now getting so much attention. Here are a few things I’ve learned about AI recently. Remember, I'm a journalist and a longtime student of spirituality, not a computer scientist:
The Hype. I am skeptical about the quality of information the public is getting about AI. No, I don't think we are being lied to. But we should be keenly aware that the hype machine is cranking out AI bluster at a volume of 11 on a Scale of 1 to 10. Who does the hype benefit? The people and companies developing AI, of course. It seems highly likely that many individuals who've been crucial in developing AI will soon be absurdly highly paid consultants for both government and business. As you watch the Evening News reports about AI, ask yourself this question: Who will benefit the most in terms of money and power? It won’t be you playing on ChatGPT.
Neural Networks: I also learned something interesting about the type of AI that is most in the news right now, neural networks, and why, out of the many "types" of AI that have been developed over the past fifty or years, this type of AI has risen to the top. Neural networks are great at sifting through mountains of data. So, who stands to benefit most from this data-focused AI? You guessed it: government, which is interested in surveillance, and big business, which, of course, wants to know you from the inside out in order to sell more stuff to you. This isn’t surprising, of course. It makes perfect sense. But it seems important to remember that this runaway AI train is being fueled by the people with most to gain in terms of power and money.
But this column isn’t really about AI. It’s about Love.
As I was sitting on my balcony, listening to the rain and Alan Watts, I wondered if AI might do some good. Could it solve the problem of Love.
Every spiritual tradition talks about Love. Love is supreme in both Christianity and some aspects of Hinduism say it. All the great wisdom traditions’ teachings about Love are extremely challenging and very high-level. Love isn’t for the weak, despite the fact that the word is in every pop song ever written. Love your neighbor AND yourself. Start with that one, and do it. Really do it. This and other teachings about Love are complex, counterintuitive, and wildly at odds with the dominant culture. And yet, for me and the many people who are on a spiritual path, these deep teachings seem to drip with capital-Truth. Love is the answer. Love might be the only thing that keeps humans from destroying our planet and our own species.
So here's my question: What if the great spiritual teachers were right? What if Love is the highest truth, the most intelligent thing? And...what if these smarter-than-human AI machines learn what humans have struggled for thousands of years to understand? What if, instead of choosing to dominate and exploit us "dumb" humans, the AI machines of the future realize that Jesus and the Buddha were right? Love and compassion are the most intelligent things.
And more… what if the AI machines of the future can figure out how to teach this profound spiritual teaching to us humans. I mean, really teach it in a way that we humans might finally get it?
What if AI ends up helping us dismantle the stockpiles of nuclear weapons? What if AI teaches us to get along with our neighbors? Stop mass shootings? End poverty? House the unhoused?
Trust me; I'm not an extremely hopeful person. I am wary of false positivity and all people who hold absurdly hopeful views about anything.
But I do try to embrace Viktor Frankl's notion of "tragic optimism," which means that one is, and remains, optimistic while staying mindful of the "tragic triad of pain, guilt, and death."
And so, going forward, I pledge to continue to listen to that spiritual rascal Alan Watts. And I pledge to hold a stance of “tragic optimism” toward AI and the future of humankind.
As Brian Wilson famously asked in his puppy-love pop song: "Wouldn't it be nice?"
Brad Wetzler is the author of Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing (Hachette Go, 2023). His articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wired, GQ, National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, and Outside, among other publications. A former adventure journalist, he now writes about our inner landscape and topics related to mental health, men’s issues, and spirituality. He lives in Austin, Texas.
The way I see it, just my two cents, it's so much easier and more socially acceptable to dispense syrupy fluttery "love". I think that's where the confusion comes in about what Love really is. It's not butterflies and lollipops but it's not hammers and nails either. It's doing whatever it takes to influence and generate the betterment of the one(s) being loved. It's applying reality to a relationship and teaching that. Even if it means you end up alone, hated or dead. That's true love and it ain't easy. In my opinion, AI is ever going to be able to understand true love because robots don't have souls. LOL. Thanks for the thought provoking post.
It would! I think at least part of the human confusion about love is that it only thinks of love as an emotion. I think it also meant to be used as a verb in how we approach each other and ourselves. Love is how we act with compassion towards one another as well as ourselves.