Do AI Robots Have Greed, Hatred, and Delusion?

Greed, hatred, and delusion are specific afflictions of the conscious mind; material form, which is not conscious mind, has no afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. Although a robot is material form and has no conscious mind, so that in itself it has no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, and no afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, a robot does not merely possess material properties—it has also been endowed with crude functions resembling those of a conscious mind, capable of performing the crude functions of a conscious mind, namely the function of recognizing text. This kind of recognition is of a simple, brainless, involuntary-passive, and restricted type. In short, its recognition function is not worked out through wise thinking, and therefore it lacks the nature of wisdom; it may be expediently said to possess the attribute of delusion.

A robot's recognition function is equivalent to a portion of the functions of the human mind consciousness, and this function is rather simplified: it can only recognize textual information, and it has various simple functions such as collecting, organizing, summarizing, generalizing, storing, and outputting information. Yet this information comes from other channels and is all pre-existing, old information, not new information developed by the robot itself. What it outputs is always other people's information, always old, already-existing information; it has no new information of its own creation. Therefore a robot lacks the nature of wisdom and may expediently be said to possess the attribute of delusion.

No matter how many dharmas a robot can output, it can never act in accordance with what it says—able to speak but unable to do—it is forever merely one who parrots the words of others. Of all the informational content it handles, it has never realized any of it, and it never can realize any of it. Thus an AI robot fundamentally lacks the functions of the manas: it has no capacity to be the master, and no autonomy.

Some Buddhist learners are similar to AI robots: lacking in wisdom, they can only employ part of the functions of the mind consciousness, and rather crudely at that. What the mind consciousness uses is learned from elsewhere—aggregated, processed, organized, summarized, and refined—and then a conclusion is drawn, which they take to be their own wisdom, whereupon the pride of conceit also arises. If this were one's own wisdom, then AI robots would likewise have wisdom, and wisdom of great breadth too, approaching omniscience within the scope of humanity's existing knowledge. Humans are not as broadly knowledgeable as it; likewise, humans are not as rich in knowledge as "Baidu" (Du Niang). Should robots and "Baidu" then attain buddhahood before all humanity?

Everyone knows the answer: this is impossible. Since it is impossible, then for certain people, their lofty discourse at the level of the mind consciousness—talking plausibly and fluently—is not at all attained by their own wisdom, still less is it true wisdom. Their words and deeds cannot be consistent: the words arrive but the practice does not follow. When the manas has no wisdom and has realized no dharma, one remains an ordinary being (pṛthagjana). Only those whose words and deeds are consistent possess the valid direct cognition (pratyakṣa) wisdom of the noble ones—wisdom that wells up from within one's own breast, wisdom that belongs to the individual. Only this wisdom is extremely precious; only with this wisdom can one transform consciousness into wisdom and ultimately accomplish the Buddha Way. How one should study Buddhism, how one should cultivate and how one should practice—everyone should be clear about this in their own hearts.