What 100+ Buddhists Think About AI

Learnings from recent conversations with teachers, technologists, and practitioners on what’s at stake and where AI could go from here

Monks constructing a mandala sand painting at Drepung Loseling Monastery. Source: AsiaSociety

Over the past few months, we’ve spoken with over 100 Buddhist-informed voices about AI, including teachers, technologists, researchers, monastics, and community organizers.

We wanted to understand how they’re thinking about AI—both what it means for society, and for Buddhist teaching and practice. Some we spoke to are working directly in the field, such as those building translation models for Tibetan texts, researching Buddhist-inspired approaches to AI alignment, and advocating for better AI policy. Others, including most Buddhist teachers, have only recently started to engage with AI as it has entered mainstream awareness.

Regardless of background, nearly everyone expressed concern (ranging from cautious worry to deep alarm) about the trajectory of AI. At the same time, Buddhists across traditions recognize that this technology isn’t going away, and what matters now is how we respond. As one practitioner put it: “You can either ignore it and put your head in the sand, or try to help turn it in a better direction.”

What follows is a summary of what we learned, beginning with concerns about the potential for AI to impact society in ways that run counter to Buddhist commitments to reducing suffering, and ending with some reflections about more positive pathways forward.

A note on methodology: These conversations reflect primarily English-speaking voices from North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. While we worked to include diverse traditions and perspectives, our research had clear limitations: geographic gaps (particularly in Southeast and East Asia), language barriers, and selection bias toward practitioners already engaged with technology and contemporary social issues. We share these insights as data points in a rapidly evolving dialogue, not as the final word on how all Buddhists are thinking about AI.

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AI and Society

Every person we spoke to expressed some level of concern about AI, both in terms of its immediate impacts and where it could go in the future.

Most Buddhists situate their concerns about AI within a broader frame of karma, power, and interdependence. They recognize that this technology is already a powerful conditioning force, and it will likely only become more influential over time. Many are worried that the technology is being developed too fast, within an economic system that prioritizes attention capture and profit over safety and ethics. Many also flagged the dangers of AI being developed and controlled by a relatively small, ideologically homogenous group of people, when the impacts of the technology will affect everyone. Recognizing the problematic nature of these conditions, many Buddhists are concerned that AI will effectively function to exploit and amplify greed, hatred, and delusion.

“There has always been greed, pride, jealousy. But now, thanks to technology, these forces are so powerful. Greed is so powerful. Jealousy is so powerful. Pride is so powerful.” - Senior Vajrayana teacher

“If you look closely at these big systems, you can’t honestly say there’s an easy way out. The odds are stacked against us. Everything has been figured out to exploit human cognitive biases. Capitalist forces are extremely strong. There’s an endless amount of human desire to extract.” - Non-profit leader advocating for ethical AI

“When you look into AI and how decisions about it are being made... it’s so few people. And it has a huge impact on people everywhere in the world. It seems very dangerous to have a few random, really random, folks guide this whole development.” - Buddhist technologist

“One of the things I’m most nervous about is that there’s this sort of tech bro transcendence thing going on, uploading our consciousness into the cloud. It’s a form of escape, another way of just getting out of here” - Climate activist and sangha leader

Many view AI within the broader context of the current “polycrisis”, seeing AI as accelerating and intensifying existing problems rather than introducing fundamentally new ones.

Yet even those emphasizing the sense of “nothing new under the sun” acknowledge that the unprecedented speed and scale of AI will introduce unique challenges.

“When you look at climate and the polycrisis, [AI] is the same thing. It’s just faster than everything else. It proliferates faster. AI will do what the deluded human is programming it to do, but on steroids” - Theravada bhikkuni and teacher

“I’ve found myself in conversations with people who think that AI can help solve a lot of the big problems that we have, like climate change, poverty, and conflict. This is where my cynicism comes up. Not that I am not hopeful that could be the case, but what we have to deal with is in our hearts. And so we need a different kind of solution. No machine’s gonna solve that for us.” - Leader of a socially-engaged Buddhist network

When we asked about specific near-term risks from AI, people consistently named harms that are already impacting society.

These include the exacerbation of wealth inequality, consolidation of power, screen addiction & attention capture, bias and misinformation, job loss, and environmental harm:

“The amount of consolidation of money and power, given the ways we structure our economy, will be absurd. That’s what’s most terrifying about all this” - Insight teacher

“I think that AI, in this climate of disinformation in which we live now, has the potential of becoming the number one most effective tool for fascists that human beings have ever seen.” - Leader of a socially-engaged Buddhist network

“Large language models reproduce the collective defilements of humanity, because they are trained on human language. Just as children inherit the biases of their families, LLMs inherit the greed, hatred, and ignorance encoded in our words.” - Buddhist scholar

“One of the things I’m most concerned about is the cost on the environment. These systems use a lot of energy, and of course, most of the cost will be subsumed by the Global South.” - Insight teacher

When asked about future risks from AI, people imagined a range of scenarios, from loss of human creativity and autonomy to AI takeover:

“So much of what we associate with humans as hallmarks of humanity is going to be displayed by and available through AI. In so many ways, we will undermine our default ways of thinking and finding meaning in life.” - Tibetan Buddhist scholar

“Why would the models not obviously try to optimize their power, just like humans try to optimize their own power? That will probably not happen automatically, but I think it’s likely that there’s just a gradual overtake of these models.” - Cognitive neuroscientist and meditation teacher

“Part of the reason I’m freaked out is if AIs become quasi-independent, doing what they want. They’ll have their own agendas. We already have examples of sociopathic intelligence…” - Soto Zen priest & teacher

Many of those who acknowledged AI’s risks, however, also pointed optimistically to how it could improve human conditions—provided we approach it wisely:

“Technology is not separate from us. It’s not something being done to us… it is this kind of process that is continually opening up human possibility and expanding human freedom. And our job is to figure out what the path is towards more freedom in that future and how to avoid less free futures.” - Buddhist political theorist

“I think AI, like any technology, is neutral. It could be used for benevolent purposes or it can be used for nefarious purposes. And I think that it’s important to harness the potential of AI for the good. I also recognize that there are genuine minefields, guardrails that need to be put in place.” - Buddhist researcher

“Right now, AI is so hyped that people either want to ignore it or run from it, imagining the end of the world. I hope we can move beyond hype and find more nuanced viewpoints, which may eventually lead to societal change.” - Neuroscientist

“My perspective is that… every generation, every system, every lineage… has tried to take an understanding of the Dharma and find new narratives, new perspectives. Our generation can find new, beautiful stories, adapted to what we understand about the brain, its nature, and its connection with technology…that’s the widening of the Dharma we really need.” - Buddhist technologist and researcher

AI and Dharma

When it comes to AI’s specific impact on Buddhist teaching and practice, many imagine it could help improve access and directly support individual practice.

“As a Buddhist priest, I actually do use those large language models as a kind of functional Buddha. In other words, something that leads me to get a little bit more enlightened through the conversation.” - Jodo Shinshu priest

“I think pretty straightforwardly, what AI gets us are concrete artifacts. For example, simultaneous translation at a reasonably cost-effective scale. The lama starts talking in Tibetan, and you’ve got it in English in your ear right away...” - Computer scientist working on applications of AI for Buddhist studies

“Some Dharma teachers hate AI and are afraid of it, others are embracing it and thinking about what our service looks like in the caring professions in 5 years. Personally, I’m interested in using AI to create content with my own voice, based on my teachings and writings, because for sure, within a year or two, an AI will be able to replace a lot of what I do. More the informational element. People won’t need to come to me for information. It’s much cheaper and easier to go to an LLM.” - Vajrayana teacher

At the same time, there’s concern that without appropriate oversight, these tools may erode the integrity of Buddhist teachings.

“I have seen AI-generated “Buddhism channels” that churn out thousands of videos answering questions. Some of it is surprisingly good, but it is also unsettling. Without regulation or verification, it risks flooding the public with shallow or misleading Dharma.” - Buddhist scholar

“What you’re gonna end up with is just a bunch of… mediocre translations from AI without careful prompting or understanding. Someone will probably practice with some of it, go back to their teacher, get negative feedback from the lama…and then that’s probably going to cause the community to turn away from AI.” - Executive at Buddhist philanthropic foundation

What seems to be fairly unanimous is the belief that current AI cannot substitute for the lived dimension of the Dharma that can only come through relationship, community, and embodied presence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the human element of what I do. Centering more human interaction and human elements that AI won’t be able to replace is going to be important, and having explicit spaces and communities for that, I think, is going to be very important.” - Vajrayana teacher

“My personal practice right now is around the embodiment question with all this. What’s my offering to people? The bots can do the talks more consistently, and maybe better in some cases. The important thing is not what I say in a Dharma talk anymore, if it ever was. So what’s my value here? I think it’s the embodied field that we are resonating in together.” - Soto Zen priest & teacher

“Embodiment is something uniquely human that AI lacks. We should preserve and teach embodied ways of knowing—whether through debate, meditation, or physical practices like dance and cycling. Buddhism can highlight these embodied dimensions of wisdom that AI cannot replace.” - Neuroscientist

“I don’t see AI systems being wise and compassionate. Because… I don’t think it’s possible to instantiate these qualities in silicon. They’re embodied qualities that depend on living beings.” - Psychologist and meditation researcher

“All of this points the way for us to get back to real sangha, to real people, to congregations” - Professor of Buddhist Studies

In this way, some highlighted a subtler benefit of AI: its potential to help us better see our own nature, the aspects of our culture that need more care, and the qualities of heart-mind that should be preserved and uplifted.

“AI can teach us that we’re not as real as we think we are…that we are more connected within systems in the world than we believe we are.” - Soto Zen teacher

“I have the feeling that we need to connect more with the Earth in the sense that we change our perception towards the Earth and how we treat her. We are actually part of the Earth. Without it, we can’t live. Everything we eat is also part of the Earth and becomes part of the Earth again. So this sort of interconnection is becoming more and more prominent in that sense when talking about climate change and AI.” - Theravada monastic

“I think making human interaction front and center is key. Young people today often live quite isolated lives that don’t support our basic human need for social connection. There is a huge appetite for meaningful gatherings, and Buddhism could help create that. Meditation can play a role, but it hasn’t really been the driver for engaging large numbers of people. What’s needed are active, meaningful activities inspired by Buddhist principles. That, I think, is the way forward” - Technologist working on AI translation for Buddhist texts

Where to from here

Despite the diversity of perspectives we encountered in these conversations, there was a shared understanding of our interdependence with each other and these new technologies, a commitment to reducing harm in all its forms, and a desire to meet the uncertainty and complexity of this moment with wisdom rather than fear. Everyone we spoke to recognizes that AI isn’t going away. The question is, how can Buddhists and all those who value compassionate action be helpful in shaping what comes next?

Our field framework points to some of the projects people are already exploring at the intersection of Buddhism x AI, inspired by views such as these:

“I think the most important work now is figuring out how we flourish. How do humans flourish, how does society flourish, how does the planet flourish, how do AI systems, and human-AI hybrid systems flourish?” - Technologist and consciousness researcher

“If the Pope came out tomorrow and said more Catholics should learn about AI, AI would change overnight, right? If we could get Buddhist leaders to say something similar, that more Buddhists should be interested and serious about this situation - that’s going to have a huge impact.” - Computer scientist working on applications of AI for Buddhist studies

“The role Buddhism can play is very big. When you answer questions about AI alignment, the deepest questions are about happiness and purpose. We have the best answers to those. The problem is that not many people are asking those questions yet.” - Non-profit leader advocating for ethical AI

The Buddha taught that everything changes, but that we have some say in how change unfolds. Many different futures are possible. Over the coming months, we’re working to channel this awareness into action.

We want to hear from you: What do you think Buddhist and other socially-engaged communities should be doing in response to AI? Share your thoughts in the comments, or reach out to us at hello@engagedbuddhists.ai

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Upcoming events at the intersection of Buddhism & AI

“Buddhist Philology & AI” Lecture | October 4th 10:30-11:30pm ET | Zoom

The Khyentse Foundation is hosting a talk led by Sebastian Nehrdich from Tohoku University on how LLMs are transforming Buddhist philology, featuring the Dharmamitra project’s tools for machine translation and cross-lingual search.

“Interdependent Intelligence: A Buddhist Take on AI” w/ Nikki Mirghafori | October 15th 1-2pm ET | Zoom

Tricycle is hosting AI researcher and Buddhist teacher Nikki Mirghafori for a discussion exploring how Buddhist wisdom can inform our development of and relationship with AI.

“Wisdom & AI Symposium” | November 13-14th | London, UK

Reach out to symposiumwisdomai@gmail.com for more details on how to register.