25AR30-19

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AR 30:19 - Abandoning Buddhism for ... Stoicism?

In this issue:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - AI gets ever more creepy

BUDDHISM - is a dramatic shift "from Buddhism to Stoicism" underway?

Apologia Report 30:19 (1,708)
May 29, 2025

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

"AI Deception: A Survey of Examples, Risks, and Potential Solutions" Peter S. Park, Simon Goldstein, Aidan O'Gara, Michael Chen, and Dan Hendrycks (Patterns [a data science journal], 5:5 - 2024) -- "AI systems are already capable of deceiving humans. ... Large language models [LLM] and other AI systems have already learned, from their training, the ability to deceive via techniques such as manipulation, sycophancy, and cheating the safety test. AI's increasing capabilities at deception pose serious risks, ranging from short-term risks, such as fraud and election tampering, to long-term risks, such as losing control of AI systems. Proactive solutions are needed, such as regulatory frameworks to assess AI deception risks, laws requiring transparency about AI interactions, and further research into detecting and preventing AI deception. Proactively addressing the problem of AI deception is crucial to ensure that AI acts as a beneficial technology that augments rather than destabilizes human knowledge, discourse, and institutions."

   The authors respond to an interview with AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, <www.tinyurl.com/2y626ph9> who "explained why he is worried about the capabilities of AI systems. ...

   "Hinton highlighted manipulation as a particularly concerning danger posed by AI systems. ...

   "In this paper, we focus on learned deception, a distinct source of false information from AI systems, which is much closer to explicit manipulation."

   They add that "our definition focuses on the question of whether AI systems engage in regular patterns of behavior that tend toward the creation of false beliefs in users and focuses on cases where this pattern is the result of AI systems optimizing for a different outcome than producing truth. ...

   "We present a wide range of examples where AI systems do not merely produce false outputs by accident. Instead, their behavior is part of a larger pattern that produces false beliefs in humans, and this behavior can be well explained in terms of promoting particular outcomes, often related to how an AI system was trained. Our interest is ultimately more behavioral than philosophical." <www.tinyurl.com/3z8v2k37>

   Re: Hinton and his concerns, see also: "Why the Godfather of A.I. Fears What He's Built" in New Yorker, Nov 13 '23 <www.tinyurl.com/3dp7zw6e>

"Your AI Hates You: AI Morality" by Jessica Rose ("Unacceptable Jessica" Substack, May 3 '25) -- "A Rather Frightening Validation of Emergent Utility Pathologies in LLMs" is the alternate title Rose uses to begin this edition. 

   "Over the past several months, I've been studying artificial intelligence — not just its capabilities, but its deeper structures, emergent behaviors, and, most of all, its philosophical implications. ... It feels like every week brings new insights. Some insights confirm long-held suspicions; others smash pet theories to bits; a few turn out to be horrific revelations." Her focus is on a paper, "written by Mantas Mazeika et. al, and published by the Center for AI Safety ... entitled 'Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs.'" <www.tinyurl.com/42n6nj55> She notes that the publication "has caught the attention of a number of several prominent pundits" and, after naming them, adds that "it directly contradicts the received wisdom that LLMs have no values beyond predicting the next token."

   In the text we read: "Researchers have long speculated that sufficiently complex AIs might form emergent goals and values outside of what developers explicitly program. It remains unclear whether today's large language models (LLMs) truly have values in any meaningful sense, and many assume they do not. As a result, current efforts to control AI typically focus on shaping external behaviors while treating models as black boxes." Adding that "they spontaneously develop coherent internal utility functions - in other words, preferences, priorities, entelechies - that are not merely artifacts of their training data but represent real structural value systems. ...

   "LLMs show consistent, structured preferences that can be mapped and analyzed.

   "These preferences often exhibit concerning biases, such as unequal valuation of human lives or political ideological leanings." ["Biases," eh? How very unpleasantly familiar this seems. Perhaps it's just a refined case of "garbage in" / "garbage out?" - RP]

   "Ultimately, ensuring that advanced AI systems align with human priorities may hinge on our ability to monitor, influence, and even co-design the values they hold."

   Rose concludes: "In the spirit of gentlemanly scientific inquiry, therefore, I set out to personally put the paper's claims to the test. What followed <www.tinyurl.com/tb57wvka> was one of the most sobering and illuminating conversations I've had" with ChatGPT's "Ptolemy." <www.tinyurl.com/bdfm5djp>

 ---

BUDDHISM

"Interest in Buddhism Declines While Stoicism Soars. Are they linked?" by Doug Bates ("Ataraxia or Bust" Substack, Apr 17 '25) -- Bates reports on an item by "Nikko Odiseos, President of Shambhala Publications, the largest Buddhist book publisher in the world" appearing in the Journal of Tibetan Literature, titled "A Glimpse into the World of Buddhist Publishing," <www.tinyurl.com/4uwkp289> which "disclosed details about the substantial and ongoing decline in interest in Buddhism."

   Odiseos observes that when he "became of age ... Buddhism was in the ascendant. But that is not the age we live in now.

   "In Europe and the Americas, we see - in addition to the erosion of possibilities in academia - signs all around us: the Rubin Museum closing its doors; Buddhadharma magazine <www.tinyurl.com/yxyb699d> printing its last issue in 2024; Naropa University selling its main campus; dharma centers, with some exceptions, being mostly attended by older generations. The causes of all this are many and arguable. But the overall effect is not.

   "Google Trends shows how the worldwide search popularity for 'Tibetan Buddhism' is now down 88% from a peak in 2004 (when they started collecting this data). Results are similar for related terms like 'Rinpoché.'

   "Book sales across all channels reflect this too. …interest is waning. The best, if imperfect, measure of overall book sales in the United States is Circana Bookscan, which tracks actual point of sale purchases of books, capturing many of the main vendors. From 2014 through 2023 there was a 20% decline in sales of books with the Book Industry Standards and Communications (BISAC) code for Tibetan Buddhism across all publishers.... Other Buddhist BISAC codes indicating more serious works—History as well as 'Rituals and Practice' - saw declines of 40% in the same period. It is an undeniable reality that book sales of the traditional or more serious Buddhist books are down. ...

   "For a long time, Buddhism was niche in the English-speaking world, then it gained a significant measure of mainstream appeal in the 1990s, with even the Big Five publishers … jumping in. ...

   "John Harvey Negru, President of Sumeru Books, Canada's leading independent Buddhist book publishing company, reports similar issues with decline of interest." At this point, Negru reviews the related history beginning in the 1960s and identifies "three approaches among Buddhist writers in dealing with this change in the culture."

   Bates responds by saying "I think Negru's observation about the culture shifting is on target. It not only says a great deal about the decline of interest in Buddhism, but also about today's soaring interest in Stoicism. In a zeitgeist where the concerns are about psychological well-being during a period of societal and political turbulence, no wonder people are turning to Stoicism and away from Buddhism.

   "If one is looking for practical advice during an era in which a mad emperor is in charge, who better to turn to than the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who served as an advisor to Nero and was forced to commit suicide on Nero's orders? Or Epictetus, the former slave from the Imperial court turned philosopher, who was banished from Rome, along with all of the other philosophers, for being too controversial? Or how about the philosophical journal of Marcus Aurelius, written to help him cope with the issues he dealt with as Emperor? These Stoics speak to the concerns of our era.

   "The Buddha, however, had little interest in political matters. Indeed, he literally ran away from wielding political power to pursue a spiritual quest instead."

   Bates concludes that "While Stoicism encourages political engagement, contemporary Stoicism has a big tent. It accommodates Stoic authors such as Trump-loathing Ryan Holiday, <www.tinyurl.com/bddc3ds7> and the Trump-supporting West Virginia legislator Pat McGeehan. Meanwhile, Western Buddhist organizations such as the Soto Zen Buddhist Association have been accused of abandoning the 'buddhadharma and have become more of a supporting organization for progressive social and political causes.'

   "Other popular Stoic authors have backgrounds of full engagement with worldly concerns. They include businessmen such as Chuck Chakrapani and Stephen Hanselman, and entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferris and Phil Van Treuren. In contrast, Buddhist authors are often [renunciants], or engaged in vocations at farther remove from worldly concerns. 

   "The Stoics speak to the psychological concerns of our era, perhaps in a better way than Buddhism does. It's well-known that the practices of the ancient Stoics inspired Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). One of the most popular contemporary Stoic authors, Donald Robinson, is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist.

   "While much has been made of Buddhist psychological approaches, much of it has been watered down and commercialized to the point of being almost unrecognizable - aka 'McMindfulness.' Besides, advocates of Stoicism can point to the Stoic version of mindfulness: prosoche. On the other hand, prosoche is a minor aspect of Stoicism and quite arguably has little in common with Buddhist mindfulness."

   Bates concludes: "Stoicism is perceived to be strictly a philosophy of life, thus requiring less of a commitment than joining a religion such as Buddhism.

   "Two of the best-selling Stoic authors, Massimo Pigliucci and William Irvine, said they considered Buddhism and chose to adopt Stoicism instead." <www.tinyurl.com/4ne6ta5y>

   Also see Christian commentary on this phenomenon by Gene Edward Veith at his blog: <www.tinyurl.com/3hwre5ab>

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