The only thing helping me calm down about AI
There’s a practice in Buddhism called the 5 daily remembrances – 5 truths that we can say out loud to ourselves every day. I remember the first time I heard them, one in particular made me recoil:
I will be separated from everything and everyone that is dear to me.
When I heard those words, I immediately thought of the things and people MOST dear to me, and thought, why would I want to entertain the thought of losing them?
And, of course, the only real answer to that question is: because I will.
Everything in my life – my body, my feelings, my status, the people I love, and the relationships I depend on – they’re all in a constant state of change. If I look at everything in my life, the way it is right now, the one thing I can be sure of is that it will all go away.
That still feels scary but according to Buddha, at least, that's not why we suffer. We don’t suffer because everything changes. We suffer because we’re trying to hold on. We’re trying to make a wave stand still.
I’ve been really trying to remember that. Because, whether reasonable or alarmist, the recent news about AI has scared the shit out of me.
All the stories about AI have opened up a door in my brain to a dark room, where bleak pictures of the future are in different phases of development.
My initial coping mechanism was to try and brighten those pictures and focus on all the good outcomes that could happen with this technology. But it’s all a fantasy. For now, the utopian dreams and the apocalyptic nightmares aren’t real. At least, not yet.
So what am I afraid of exactly?
Unemployment? My daughter’s future? The survival of my species? It kind of boils down to this: I’m afraid that I’m going to lose everything.
And what Buddha says is: “Yes, facts.”
I will lose everything. But that’s not because of AI. That’s always been true.
Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. Right up until the day we die. And we have no idea when that day will come, either.
In the meantime, every time we lose sight of the impermanence of all things, we will pay the cost in two ways:
We will distress over “holding on” to what we have (making things not change)
We will take things for granted and act like there’s always more time.
Often, we will do both at once.
We try to collect comforts, joys, relationships, safety nets – and then hold onto them for dear life while simultaneously taking them for granted. Part of me never wants my daughter to grow up – I’m scared of losing out on the purpose and joy that I feel raising her. So why do I sometimes run away from her to sneak into the other room to completely unnecessarily check my email on my phone?
For the same reason the leaders I support often shy away from saying what feels true, doing what feels right, or following their heart. Because they’re scared of losing what they have now (reputation, influence, job security) and there’s always more time to do it later.
The most devastating lesson I ever got about this came from a leader I supported in an intensive years ago who was struggling to acknowledge her limits and set boundaries at her job while she was balancing being a single mom of a two year old. She didn’t care much about her reputation, but she was very committed to holding onto a story that she could do it all. It was hard for her to recognize her exhaustion and accept her own needs. I don’t know if she got there - and I’ll never know - because two years later she died in a car crash. (Her daughter, who was in the backseat, thank god survived.)
That’s the stuff that will break your heart and mess with your head, pretty bad. Because it forces you to face the reality that this is ALL so fragile and so precious. The potential for devastating loss is an everpresent reality.
But that’s also the whole point. Accepting that everything we have is in a constant state of change - and nothing is permanent - is not a cause for giving up. It’s a reason for waking up.
To loosen our grip on our reputation, appearance, money, whatever – so that we can be more present to what we have now. More curious about what’s in store – knowing that things will always be changing, dying, and being born. The chance to be more vulnerable about what we really feel. More honest with ourselves and the people we love, today.
This is my aspiration. In reality, I spent too many hours last week (more than I will admit to you now) creating my “prepper” kit for a hypothetical AI apocalypse. So clearly the world today is putting my amateur buddhism to the test.
But it does help to slow down and remember that 2500 years ago there was a guy sitting under a tree grappling with the same core reality that nothing is permanent and we will lose everything.
For him, that was enlightenment. I’ll settle for a little more presence and a little less anxiety.
