The Deepak Chopra Bot
AI Agents Are Proliferating
My book, Thinking With Machines, is out. Please send me your thoughts!
My Latest Podcast Guest
My most recent guest on Brave New World was Deepak Chopra. I’ve followed Deepak’s work and thinking since the 80s, when he began to blend and contrast concepts from Eastern metaphysics with Western medicine and science. I still remember his appearance on the Oprah show in the early 90s.
Like most people of my generation who grew up in India, I’ve been trained in the Western scientific tradition. In graduate school, I was deeply influenced by philosophers such as Karl Popper, Carl Hempel, Nicholas Rescher, and Rudolph Carnap, who reject metaphysics as a basis for epistemology – the science of knowledge – and argued that meaningful statements must be empirically verifiable or analytically true. Along this tradition, philosophers who study consciousness regards it as something that is created by the brain, and has a physical basis.
In contrast, Deepak proposes that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the universe, and that the mind can shape physical outcomes. In other words, reality is virtual. Deepak’s novelty lies in popularizing a spiritual, wellness-oriented worldview using quantum metaphors, and bringing ancient Vedantic ideas into the study of consciousness. The neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris has a similar view, that reality is an illusion created by the mind.
As I listened to my conversation with Deepak, I was struck by the clarity with which he explains his position. Some sentences stayed with me, which will probably make you ponder as well, such as “consciousness is the stem cell of the universe,” and the following sentences which I have truncated slightly: “science is a very good methodology for understanding virtual reality. It is not a good methodology for exploring the truth.”
So, check out our conversation at:
You might find Deepak’s ideas about consciousness and truth mind boggling, but they will make you think about reality in a new way.
For contrasting views on the nature of reality and consciousness in the Western tradition, check out my conversations on Brave New World with neuroscientist Anil Seth and philosopher David Chalmers.
The Deepak Chopra Bot
In my new book, Thinking With Machines, I devote a fair amount of attention to “agents,” which has become a hot topic in AI. In one of my chapters, I describe the “Damodaran Bot,” a multi-agent system designed to think like valuation guru Aswath Damodaran.
In my last chapter on “AI Governance,” I muse whether people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who are likely to be worth trillions by the time they pass away, will leave the management of their estate to their digital agents instead of using foundations, which is the primary mechanism at the moment for people to exercise their influence posthumously. I conjecture that in the future, we are much more likely to trust our AI-based agents to manage our affairs instead of human agents, whose interests might diverge considerably from our original intent.
Since the time I wrote the book, I am convinced that the scope of AI agents is likely to be even larger than I envisioned, and will appeal to us for a variety of reasons. I realized this a few days ago, when I went to give Deepak Chopra an autographed copy of my book. While we chatted in his Greenwich Village apartment located a few blocks from mine, he introduced me to his bot, which is designed to think like him.
“Try it out,” he suggested, as he perused my book.
As it turned out, I was dealing with a frustrating and complicated personal situation that was causing me some mental anguish, and I hadn’t slept well the night before. I described the situation to Deepak’s bot, while he sat beside me listening to his digital self respond to my questions. It felt a little surreal.
The bot’s response blew my mind. It sounded just like Deepak, although there was no mistaking that I was talking to a computer. I was impressed that it considered the deep nuance of what I said, and seemed not to be generating a canned response from his writings. But more importantly, its advice was something I would expect from Deepak based on his writings, including his latest books, Awakening, and Digital Dharma, which I read a few months ago in preparation for our podcast conversation.
The bot told me to reflect on the situation in a quiet space. It told me to ask myself whether I should ignore the situation, resolve it, or take more time to think about it. While it was talking, I interrupted and told it that I wanted to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
In response, it gave me a very Deepak Chopra style response. It told me to first clarify in my mind the core reasons for the conflict, to be aware of the ethics involved, to be firm, and to exercise a high moral standard. It also told me to give the other party space to express themselves, to put myself in their shoes, and to be sympathetic to the conflicting position without wavering in my core beliefs about the situation. Equally importantly, it told me to focus on our shared objectives, to find common ground, and not to let ego get in the way of finding that common ground.
I followed the Deepak’s bot’s advice a few hours later. Even though the conflicting positions generated a considerable amount of heat during the ensuing conversation, I was mindful of finding common ground, which we eventually did. I came away from the conversation asking myself whether I would trust the bot in other situations. To be sure, I was impressed.
Reflections From My Book
I’ve had more than a dozen engaging conversations about my book over the last two weeks since its release. I won’t list them all, but I’d like to bring your attention to this one from last week with the Wall Street Journal podcast host Gerry Baker, which touches on several key themes in my book:
Gerry is an incredibly gifted interlocutor. The 30-minute conversation was crisp, and one of the best I’ve had so far. But it isn’t a substitute for reading the book!
In another presentation I made to a large group at Standard and Poor’s a few weeks ago, a theme from the book that generated some discussion was what I refer to as the AI-driven impending bifurcation of humanity into those who are able to amplify their abilities through AI versus those who use it as a crutch and go into cognitive decline. During the Q&A, the Global Chief Economist of Standard and Poor’s, Paul Gruenwald, asked a most interesting question. Does this idea of impending inequality extend to organizations and countries as well?
It’s a fascinating question. What do you think? I’ll share my thoughts on it in a subsequent post. Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
After all that has emerged about Deepak Chopra in the latest Epstein dump, appears our gurus have feet of clay and are undeserving of our respect, regardless of all that they so glibly propound and monetize.