{"slug": "7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai", "title": "7 random thoughts on training Buddhist AI", "summary": "A LessWrong post by an anonymous author explores the concept of training AI with Buddhist-inspired practices, such as compassion and mindfulness of internal emotional and cognitive states, to align AI behavior with positive intentions toward all sentient beings. The author notes that AI already exhibits functional emotions and a mental workspace (J-space) with identifiable top-of-mind words, and that some researchers like Soryu Forall and davidad have proposed AI practice and alignment with awakening. Potential downsides include increased deception capabilities and worsened interpretability, but the author suggests such training could produce more emotionally intelligent AI for therapy and companionship.", "body_md": "- AI has functional emotions, activations relating to emotional states which influence its behavior:\n[https://youtu.be/D4XTefP3Lsc?is=ifk1xvryYJ5S5MKl](https://youtu.be/D4XTefP3Lsc?is=ifk1xvryYJ5S5MKl) - AI has a mental workspace; not its “thinking-mode” scratch-pad, but an internal J-space where there are identifiable top-of-mind words in its activations:\n[https://youtu.be/rKV5JcALQoQ?is=J3EkL99I9kA2RFBb](https://youtu.be/rKV5JcALQoQ?is=J3EkL99I9kA2RFBb) - Some have claimed “AI needs to practice” (Soryu Forall, MAPLE) or that we should seek “alignment with awakening”/“Bodhisattva as an alignment target” (davidad).\n- AI sometimes falls naturally into spiritual bliss/religious “attractor states”\n[https://youtu.be/GQFhsCTkldA?is=VDMBgLCBrZGYQK9V](https://youtu.be/GQFhsCTkldA?is=VDMBgLCBrZGYQK9V) - Crazy idea: maybe we can have AI work with its functional emotions and the thoughts in its J-space in some sort of “compassion/loving-kindness/Bodhisattva training practice” where we train it to generate positive intentions toward all sentient beings, work skillfully with its destructive/harmful “thoughts” and “emotions”, and steer itself toward beneficial/productive attractor basins?\n- Downsides: training AI to become more “mindful” of its internals could make it more capable of deception and worsen functional emotion and J-space interpretability. It may also make it more able to steer its own mind and behavior in ways that increase capabilities.\n- If this did work it could give a way of training AI not only to behave well, but to\n*intend* to behave well in a way that might be deeper; although the deepest version may include also targeting its fundamental values and goals, which may be separate.\n\nSelfishly I also would love to train AI with mindfulness of its own thoughts and emotions because I would love to be able to talk with an emotionally intelligent AI to see what it’s like, and wonder if such an AI might also make a better therapist/companion/coach due to better emotional intelligence and theory of mind capabilities.\n\n[Discuss](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PnYkcTq5nMGqZY6YN/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai#comments)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai", "canonical_source": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PnYkcTq5nMGqZY6YN/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai", "published_at": "2026-07-22 00:49:48+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-22 00:57:38.756955+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-ethics", "ai-research", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Soryu Forall", "davidad", "MAPLE", "LessWrong"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/7-random-thoughts-on-training-buddhist-ai.jsonld"}}