AI & the Spiritual Opportunity of the Human Race

Is AI going to bring on the end of the world? 

Doom and gloom are never a foregone conclusion – there is always opportunity. But before we get to the opportunity part, let’s look at the doom. 

If you’re not familiar with the Doomsday Clock, it was set up in 1945 by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists after the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a way of symbolically demonstrating how close the human race is to self destruction. At that time, the focus was on avoiding a proliferation of nuclear weapons. But over time the clock has referenced other threats to our continuance. 

A year ago, the clock was set to 89 seconds to midnight. This year it changed to 85 seconds to midnight – the closest it has been to midnight in its history. 

This change has come about partly because of concerns about the rapid, unchecked development of AI, and how this could accelerate the existing chaos and dysfunction already in the world’s information ecosystem, supercharging misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

Some also say it could also be used to produce biological threats and give militaries more power, and therefore the opportunity to create vastly more devastation on the battlefield.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists list four actions that can bring us back from this brink:

1. Limit nuclear build-up and testing.
2. Reduce the possibility for AI to be used to create biological threats.
3. Reduce fossil fuel use.
4. Create international guidelines for the use of AI in the military, especially in nuclear control systems. 

So while the clock was produced to alert us to the dangers of nuclear weapons, they are now only appearing in two of the four ways we can save ourselves. AI also appears twice.

The Dangers From A Spiritual Perspective

While it has a myriad of current and potential future benefits, in my opinion The Aetherius Society’s teachings show two main ways that artificial intelligence technology has the potential to be harmful to the human race.

#1: Robots/AI harm us

Firstly, the obvious one. We could make robots that can end up harming us. 

This is the scenario we’ve seen played out in movies time and time again; from 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Terminator franchise, The Matrix and so on. It’s a concern raised by many technology commentators. But it’s also an extremely obvious concern that many ordinary people worry about. In spite of this, some still dismiss this as baseless fear-mongering.

#2: Robots/AI allow us to become super-lazy

The second way that AI could harm us is less obvious. Ironically, it could become too helpful. We could end up making robots that are extremely helpful and can fulfill our every need. So much so that we may no longer need to do basic tasks. In fact, this is virtually the goal. 

I recently watched a video of a humanoid robot emptying a dishwasher. The comments on this video were jubilant about this development, to the effect of: “Hurray, we no longer need to empty our dishwashers!”

The dishwasher itself is already a robot. But now we have taken it a step further by having a robot empty it. Soon, it seems, we won’t even need to load the dishwasher. In fact, the robot will cook and clean for us.

Gradually, we will have AI robots carrying out more and more of our mundane tasks. Perhaps one day even all of them. 

In fact, this is not really a “one day” scenario any more. 

Recently Tesla, the electric car manufacturer, announced it was discontinuing two of its vehicle lines so that the company could pivot to the production of humanoid robots. That’s how close we are to this kind of future – the factories are being prepared for mass production of humanoid robots. 

Already delivery robots are commonplace around the American Headquarters of The Aetherius Society in Hollywood. And driverless taxis too.

A delivery robot named Krishna outside the American Headquarters of The Aetherius Society in Los Angeles

If we continue in this direction and make robots that are brilliant at helping us, strangely, this could be a very bad complement to the militarization of robots and AI technology. If we look at the true history of the human race, the worst incident in our history was born out of this exact scenario.

Our true history

This is not our first run in with AI.

Our true history involves the previous civilizations of Maldek, Lemuria and Atlantis. 

Maldek was a green and beautiful planet in our Solar System. The inhabitants – the human race – developed their technology to such a point that they had robots – which I assume would involve AI – doing all the basic tasks. Most people became lazy and wiled away their time in the sun. 

But not all. 

There were some who sought power. They advanced their technology down the military route and delved deeply into the inner workings of the atom. They created a weapon so powerful, it could destroy their entire planet. 

And they did. 

The whole race of people were murdered and, even worse, so was the planet itself. Now all that remains of it is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

After we destroyed that planet, we were reincarnated upon Earth. We then repeated this scenario, building up a civilization known as Lemuria, only to destroy it also through nuclear war. 

Almost unbelievably, after having built up a new civilization – Atlantis – we again destroyed ourselves through nuclear war. 

Today, we have rebuilt once again our civilization. Once again we have delved into the atom and produced devastating weapons. Once again we are automating all our menial tasks. 

Will we destroy our civilization once again?

The mental diseases

AI is especially dangerous for us humans because we are susceptible to a very dangerous disease – egotism. 

Unchecked, this disease has brought about our downfall previously. Those few who sought the power within the atom did so because of their desire to gain power and control i.e. they succumbed to the disease of egotism. 

The rest of the population – the people who stood back and allowed it to happen – succumbed to something different. Laziness. 

This concoction – egotism in some and laziness in others – is a recipe for disaster. Literally, a recipe for the end of a civilization. 

But the future is unwritten. It is never a foregone conclusion. It’s not all doom and gloom. There is hope. There is possibility. There is opportunity. 

The warnings of caution around the development of AI are sensible. For if we get it wrong, the results could be catastrophic. 

But no matter how bad things get, there is always the opportunity for change.

Can we control AI?

As urgent as this question is, it’s not actually the most important question. 

It’s not so much about whether we should use AI technology or not. It’s not even about focusing on controlling AI as a priority. The priority is more fundamental than this. It’s a deeper review of our psychology. And it requires a more profound change than laws and policies will ever provide. 

It’s obvious really. Rather than try to control AI, we need to first control ourselves. We should choose love and service.

We have developed our technology of the last century or two extraordinarily. But what about our spirituality? On the whole, we are still primarily stuck with very basic ideas about God and our place in the cosmos. 

To ensure a brighter future, we must develop ourselves spiritually. We must free ourselves from fear, hate and selfishness. We must learn to manifest the great power of love in all our thoughts and actions. If we can bring forth this love, then no technology we create will ever be our master. In fact, science and spirituality can work together hand in hand. 

This is a point made by one of the most famous scientists in history, Albert Einstein:

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

The need for a balance of science and spirituality is at the heart of the Cosmic Message as received from the Cosmic Masters who spoke through the yogic mediumship of Master of Yoga Dr. George King. 

From the time they began in the 1950s, through to the end of Dr. King’s life in 1997, they were consistent – humanity needs to turn back to spirituality. This is the only force that can balance and stabilize the development of our science. These changes are especially well articulated in The Nine Freedoms, a series of messages channeled by Dr. George King from an interplanetary intelligence known simply as Mars Sector 6.

But this philosophy was also beautifully summed up by a message channeled through Dr. King from the Master Jesus in 1957:

“Science, by itself, is like the soulless wanderer of the realms of night. Yet a warmth will come out of Love, to fashion it into a tool, so that it becometh as a wise man, finding his home.”

It’s the blending of these two forces in harmony that is the key to unlocking a bright future.

The way forward

Here’s a glimpse of the future if our civilization used its energies in a more spiritual direction. It shows the incredible opportunity we have within our grasp. 

These are the words of Master of Yoga Dr. George King from an address he gave in 1967:

“If mankind had spent as much effort on the control and transmission and internal use of spiritual energies as he has on perfecting flight, for instance, war would—and talk and thought of war—would be so alien to the natures of the people now existing on Earth that if such a thought dawned on anyone they would immediately—without having to be asked or ordered—they would immediately go for a complete analysis to assure themselves their brain was not turning down wrong channels.

If the control and use of what we call universal life forces had been really studied as, for instance, has the motorcar, today we would on this Earth be able—with permission—to detach ourselves from the human body and visit Africa, the North Pole, the South Pole, or even the moon. We would know far more about the stars and the planets than ever we know today. We would have vehicles which we could use, which makes the fastest jet airplane look like a child’s toy—and a backward child’s toy as well.

If we had thrown as much effort into the study and control and use of the natural forces which bombard this Earth for 24 hours per day, as we have in perfecting the atom bomb, there is no end—your imagination can be let freely roam before you can come to an end of what would be our capabilities today. All sickness would be gone. People would be able to live, I would estimate, three to four hundred years in the same physical body and still look young. The physical body regenerating itself from the energies which are available, which could be concentrated, which could be directed. 

No disease of course. Naturally, of course, no poverty. Ignorance would gradually be dispelled because of the concentration of forces which activate and vibrate the cells of the brain. So we would not have some people capable of writing books on philosophy and others incapable of reading two simple words. There would not be this division in the human race. It would all be brought up onto a higher level.”

This is the future we have before us if we choose it. It is a far more exciting and uplifting future than the future technology can promise on its own. 

The question is: do we want to change?

About the author
Julian Rosser is a Priest and a Director of The Aetherius Society based in Los Angeles. He has previously worked for The Aetherius Society at its European Headquarters in London and prior to that was on the volunteer staff at the New Zealand Branch. He is a regular blogger, presenter and author of One Elephant: a Spiritual Journey to the Cosmos from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.