The Biggest Danger of Technology Has Nothing to Do With AI
Questioner: Good afternoon, sir. Sir, I am Kiran Mehata. Sir, because of the lockdown from the past two years, we have been rigorously using cell phones or smartphones or laptops way too much from 2020. So, sir, we are addicted to it. Now addiction is one problem, but the other is like we have low self-esteem due to it, and we have lost our patience, anger issues. So, how to overcome all of them?
Acharya Prashant: What is the relation that you see? How is self-esteem lowered because of cell phone or laptop use?
Questioner: Sir, like if you want to talk to people, we text them, we message them on social media. But when we meet them in person, we are very introverted, or we fear to talk to them, like even to ask “how are you?” Like even if the teacher asks something like X, Y, Z, we want to search the question and we want to answer. We don’t know it. That is a habit of why we have been using laptops, and now we’re used to searching and answering. Now that’s all gone.
Acharya Prashant: So, you mean there is a loss of spontaneity?
Questioner: Yes, sir.
Acharya Prashant: The Internet or Google comes as a handy support, a backup. If you do not know what to do or how to respond, you can rely on them. But in real life, real-time situations, that doesn’t happen. You cannot depend on Google to respond to someone who is standing right in front of you. Right.
So this is something you must be cautious of. It’s a phenomenon widely experienced. Technology cannot be a substitute for real-life interaction. And planned statements or responses can never carry the authenticity of something that is spontaneous. Communication through text appears safer, but is also duller. It does not carry the warmth and liveliness of a face-to-face thing, and it can become a habit to hide behind text. Right?
Do not let that become a habit. That habit simply means fear. Do not protect fear. If there is something that cannot be said face to face, ask yourself, does it deserve to be said in writing? The same phone that you use to text people can also be used to talk. And it’s not as if texting necessarily saves time. You can get into an endless exchange of text messages, and that can go on for two hours. Does that not happen? Text, text, text, text, text, text.
And when you are not texting, you are waiting for the other’s text, and WhatsApp is showing “Rajiv is typing,” and you’re waiting. “Yeah, what is he typing, what is he typing?” Even before he has pressed the send button, you are already shadow boxing. You have already come up with five possible options, this is what he might be writing, and if he writes this, I’ll reply this way. How is that saving time? Please tell me.
There can be instances when text can save time, yes, obviously. So you don’t want to go through the entire process of ringing someone up, and it’s not worth it, so you simply write two words and get done with it. So that is all okay. But if a matter can be finished off in two minutes, five minutes, directly by conversing with that person, either face to face or on call, what is the need to hide behind text? Similarly, what is the need to hide behind knowledge, external knowledge I mean, Google knowledge?
Those who have known have said that you know only when you live. Your knowledge is your knowledge only if you are living that knowledge. If knowing does not become being, then there is no knowing.
Knowing must turn into being.
Can Google knowledge turn into your being? You can quickly Google something and spit out the fact or the information and be done with it. It will not become your life. It will not get into the depth of your mind, won’t help much.
Use technology to your advantage. Do not use it to handicap yourself. Technology must be used to do what you cannot do. Technology must not become a substitute for what you already can healthily do.
If I have the benefit of technology, what should I develop for myself, a car or a crutch? Crutch, you understand? What is a crutch? The things that you use to assist yourself in walking, Baisakhi. Now, you have these two feet already, but they cannot take you at 60 kmph. So let technology give you a car. The car is furthering your power now, it is furthering your ability. These two legs cannot take you beyond that speed.
Instead, if you use technology to develop very advanced crutches with AI and feel proud of it, what have you done to yourself? Instead of augmenting the capacity of the legs, you have debilitated the legs. Maybe with your legs you were able to go at least at 10 kmph. Now, with the assistance of technology, you are going at 2 kmph.
Now that brings us back to the fundamental question of who is the user of technology, and that’s where internal liberation lies. No technology will be of use if you are internally not free, not luminous. Whatsoever is given to you, you will use it to your own disadvantage.
You have heard the old story of the monkey with the sword, right? Those were bygone times. So all that the monkey could have was a sword. But these are times of advanced technology, the monkey can have an ICBM tipped with a nuclear weapon. What will the monkey do? The monkey has been given great technology. What will the monkey use it for? The same thing that his ancestral monkey used it for.
What was the sword used for? The monkey was given the sword, actually, he picked it up. Did he use it for any creative purpose?
If we remain monkeys within, whatsoever comes to us, power, rights, knowledge, technology, we will use it to our own detriment, our own destruction. But we don’t understand this. We think just because we have something, it is for the better. No, not necessarily.
It all depends on who you are, and that’s a central Vedic question, who are you? If you are not right, whatsoever you have will be just wrong for you.
First of all, you have to be right within, and then whatever you have can be used rightly.
You go back to the epics. You think of all the classical villains, Ravan, Kans, Duryodhan, Hiranyakashipu. They had a lot, no? Ravan was the superpower of his times. Lanka of gold, so much weaponry as well, and he had a lot of knowledge too, no? Hiranyakashipu too had a lot. He had been gifted with blessings. Duryodhan was so powerful.
The question is, what were these people using their power and knowledge and money for? Were they evil because they didn’t have anything?
Why are they still remembered as the topmost baddies? Why? Because they didn’t have much? No. They had a lot, but were operating whatever they had from a bad center. So it’s the center within that means everything.
If the center is false, then all technological progress will simply mean climate change, extinction of species, actually the sixth mass extinction phase in which we have already entered now. This kind of mass extinction could not have happened to the caveman, to the ancient man. Why? Because he didn’t have technology.
Internally, we have remained that same old caveman, but additionally today that caveman has a lot of technology and power. So he has used that technology, that power, just to finish himself off.
As you grow up, move through life, you’ll find technology taking even bigger strides. Be very careful. The user of the technology must be placed very rightly. Technology by itself is simply power, and those who have great power must first of all be great within. If you are not great within but have great power, the results will be very catastrophic. Are you getting it?
Some wise men said that the world is in such bad shape today because the growth of knowledge, the rate of growth of knowledge, is many times more than the rate of growth of wisdom. You could replace knowledge with technology in this saying.
Technology is growing at a scorching rate. No? You have newer versions of popular software being released every passing year, newer kinds of more powerful gadgets you are seeing every day in the market. Technology is growing at that rate. Is our wisdom growing at that rate? And if not, then how will we use that technology? What will we use that technology for?
Is this a difficult question to answer? Don’t you see that this is an obvious thing that we should be thinking about? Instead, we do not find this question being taken up. We sing paeans to technology, to knowledge, to our growth, without devoting even 1% of our resources to our internal development, to the growth of wisdom. You could call that spiritual growth. Not even 1% of our resources are devoted to that.
So the mad monkey, we say, is being now handed over a nuclear-tipped missile. Let’s wait for the consequences.
