Venerable Master Jianying Speaks on AI Development and Buddhism at National Taipei University of Technology
On March 10, 2025, Venerable Abbot Jianying of Chung Tai Chan Monastery was invited by the "2025 Forum of the University System of Taipei" to speak at National Taipei University of Technology (Taipei Tech). The lecture titled "A Buddhist Perspective on AI Development and Its Challenges" drew an audience of over 1,200 attendees, including faculty and students from the four universities of the Taipei United University System—National Taipei University, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei Medical University, and National Taiwan Ocean University—as well as experts and scholars from various fields. The event was held at Taipei Tech's Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.
In his lecture, Venerable Abbot mentioned that while generative AI can help process vast amounts of information and assist in prediction, decision-making, and execution, its training data and preset parameters impose inherent limitations. These constraints can lead to "habitual thinking" and "fixed thinking," inevitably introducing biases shaped by political, cultural, and social perspectives.
In response to this, the Buddhist concepts of the "pure mind of empty nature" and the "progress of awakening" provide a meaningful framework to address these limitations. By applying Buddhist principles— such as transforming the sixth consciousness into the wisdom of sublime observation and the seventh consciousness into the wisdom of perceiving the equality of all things—these insights can guide the design of Reinforcement Learning and Supervised Fine-Tuning training processes, achieving debiasing and alignment in AI systems.
Abbot Jianying further elaborated on the various challenges brought about by AI, including job uncertainty and skill obsolescence, mental health and interpersonal relationship issues, as well as dilemmas in decision-making and ethical challenges. Overall, these challenges are characterized by rapid change, complexity, and compounding difficulties, leading to increasing anxiety and distress among people. In the face of these challenges, Buddhism offers the wisdom of impermanence, emptiness, and compassion, with meditation as the foundation, fostering stability and self-discipline to help people make thoughtful and compassionate choices for the benefit of all.
AI has the power to shape the future, yet it also carries unpredictable risks. The non-duality and indivisibility of emptiness and existence in Buddhism, along with the interconnectedness of causality, provides guidance for individuals to make bodhisattva-like choices rooted in warmth and compassion, while cultivating pure wisdom arising from mental stillness and stability. This, in turn, helps safeguard technological advancements that foster a future that is harmonious, compassionate, equitable, and self-determined.
Drawing upon the wisdom of Buddhism, Venerable Abbot Jianying guided the audience toward a deeper understanding and reflection on the AI era. The attendees were deeply inspired, filled with Dharma joy, and the lecture concluded smoothly at 9:30 PM.
