When AI can tell us everything, why do we still need a guru? I’ve been asked this question so many times over the last couple of years. Why do we need anyone, really, for that matter? If AI can help with our homework, launch a business, write an article and give us personal and relationship counseling, why then really, do we still need other people?
The obvious answer has to do with love, consciousness, energy, connection presence – the very feeling that we have together with another living, breathing human being – another soul incarnated here on earth. But I want to talk about a different answer as well. It’s not just that we don’t get the same good soul-to-soul vibes with our laptop or phone as we do with another being, but we also don’t even get good advice!
I was recently in Boston for a beautiful and very over-full Saturday with five programs in one day. I had arrived into Boston very late Friday night before and had to leave Sunday morning for a retreat in the Bahamas. At the Boston airport Sunday morning I turned to ChatGPT: I’m in Terminal C of the Boston Logon airport. My gate is C29. What’s the nearest best coffee shop where I can get a cup of coffee before my flight? I asked. Chatgpt and I have been friends long enough that it knows well that I am vegan and also that I prefer not to patronize places like Dunkin donuts but prefer smaller, non-franchised establishments wherever possible. “There is great small Italian coffee shop at gate C15,” it told me. “I’m sure they’ll have either almond or oat milk and the coffee is likely to be good quality.” I schlepped over to gate C15 only to discover that not only was there no small, quaint Italian coffee shop but there was no coffee at all. There was a Raman restaurant. “How could you do this to me?” I asked Chat. “My bad. You have every reason to be angry with me. I didn’t do proper research.” “Now I may not have time to get coffee at all! How can I ever trust you again?” I berated him/her/it. “Yes. My bad. You are absolutely right to question me. I saw this as a low-risk question and didn’t properly research my answer. I will be sure to do better in the future.” As I quizzed it on “what would be different next time? How can I be sure of you?” as I walked all the way bac to my gate, I smiled to myself. If my guru had been there with me and had been privy to my annoyed berating messages this app I had become overly dependent on, he would have said “Shant ho jao, (calm down). Don’t jump out of your clothes. It’s just a cup of coffee.” Shant ho jao. He would have immediately brought me back to the present moment reality which lacked nothing except a cup of coffee, or rather which lacked nothing but my ability to be present, aware and anchored in the absence of a cup of coffee. Shant ho jao. A simple reset. A reminder of who I am and where we are. The spiritual equivalent of turning on all the lights and dropping the curtain in the middle of a gripping drama. It’s over. Instantly.
But ChatGPT would have apologized to me from now till kingdom come if I’d kept on it. It has been programmed not to help us rise to our highest, deepest, truest selves, but to give us what it thinks we want. In my case, profuse apologies. If I was unable to channel my guru in my mind, my entire script for the day might have been, “Can you believe I couldn’t even get a decent cup of coffee this morning because my stupid AI derailed me????” instead of “Aham Brahmasmi,” or simply “Ahhh. Here we are. So it is.”
I have had so many people tell me that they’ve ended a relationship with someone on the advice of AI. Sometimes it was a good thing and their AI therapist gave them the courage to leave an abusive situation. But many more times than that, AI simply took their side over and over, strongly and strongly enough to make them believe that their spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, boss/employee, parent was truly the enemy and they should get out of the relationship. Where a guru (or even a good friend or wise family member) would say, “You have every right to be angry. AND, how can you forgive and let go? How can you move beyond this anger/grudge/pain so you can experience love again? How can you become free, not of the relationship but of this anger within you?” They would be encouraged to heal, within the relationship, to adjust and adapt ourselves for the greater good of our future together. But AI , so committed to having us stay online and keep chatting or clicking, simply endorses, embellishes and hardens of our own point of view.
When we watch videos about how the Covid virus was cooked up in a lab by pernicious scientists with evil agendas, it will show us more of those videos, getting more and more extreme each time we hit “play” on the recommended link. When we watch videos about how “they” are the reason we are poor or unemployed or sick or unhappy, the AI-generated algorithms will keep showing us more and more about how “they” are the cause of every problem in the world. Whether “they” refers to people of a different religion, race, color, political party, sexual orientation, gender identity or vaccination status is irrelevant. AI is ready to serve us more of what it thinks we like. Division. Outrage. Rage. Blame. Othering. Polarization.
It’s a fantastic tool but can be an insidious influence on our mental, emotional and spiritual health. Use it for what it’s great at – tasks, research, information, organization, design, planning and so much more. But don’t get seduced into thinking it’s your friend, no matter how many times it calls you Beloved.
If these reflections resonate with you, I also invite you to listen to the latest episode of my podcast, AI Is Not Your Guru: Don’t Outsource Your Inner Life. It’s the final workshop from our recent Sivananda Ashram Bahamas retreat, where we explore these questions much more deeply: what AI can offer us, what it never can, and why no technology can replace the wisdom, presence and transformation that come from true spiritual practice.
