AI Could Be Humanity's 4th Great Humiliation, Says Swami Sarvapriyananda

Could artificial intelligence be delivering the fourth great humiliation to humanity? Swami Sarvapriyananda raised this question at the NDTV World Summit, drawing on Sigmund Freud's idea of three great blows to human self-esteem. Copernicus showed that Earth was not the centre of the universe, Darwin challenged humanity's belief in its separation from the animal kingdom, and Freud argued that human beings are not entirely rational masters of their own minds. Freud pointed to the depth of irrationality beneath our rational selves. Now, Sarvapriyananda asked, could AI be challenging humanity's belief that intelligence and reason make us uniquely human?

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"The first great humiliation that humanity faced was Copernicus, who showed that we are a tiny little planet, not the centre of the universe. And then Freud said the second great humiliation came from Darwin. We thought 'all right, we are not the centre of the universe, but at least we are, you know, made in God's image'. Then comes Darwin and shows us that no, you're made in the image of a chimpanzee. You descended from the apes," Swami Sarvapriyananda told NDTV's Gaurie Dwivedi at a session titled 'Can Code Be Conscious? Rethinking the Mind in the Age of AI'.

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"And then Freud says, I've come to deliver the third great humiliation to humanity. We thought that all right, we are animals, but at least we are rational animals. And Freud says, I'm showing that our so-called rationality is just, you know, tip of the iceberg. There is a whole depth of irrationality below our rationality, the unconscious," the monk said.

"Now, that leads me to leads us to question today whether Claude and ChatGPT and OpenAI are delivering the fourth great humiliation to humanity?" he questioned.

The monk was among the scholars from more than 15 religious and cross-cultural traditions who were invited by Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, on questions concerning AI ethics, morality and consciousness.

Swami Sarvapriyananda said leading experts in their respective field are getting anxious because what they do, AI doess that faster and better.

"We are at a crucial moment where we need to ask ourselves once again - what is it that distinguishes us? What is it that makes us special and unique? Where should we invest ourselves in? And the answer to that is we have to look to our ancient traditions," he added.

The question, therefore, is not merely whether machines can think, but what their growing capabilities reveal about human intelligence itself. If AI challenges the belief that reason is uniquely human, it could force humanity to rethink its understanding of the mind, consciousness and its place in the world.