AI evolution could threaten human consciousness and autonomy

This redefinition has immediate consequences for how technological systems are conceived. Intelligent technologies are not simply instruments to be used or abandoned at will; they are active participants in the evolution of human consciousness, meaning, and agency. This interconnectedness means that emerging digital infrastructures are not neutral but karmically significant - they shape and are shaped by the values, intentions, and actions of their human creators and users.

In a sweeping reassessment of humanity’s technological future, a new study by Peter D. Hershock argues that artificial intelligence and scientific materialism are together steering society toward profound existential and ethical risks. In the study titled "AI, Consciousness, and the Evolutionary Frontier: A Buddhist Reflection on Science and Human Futures," published in Religions, Hershock warns that the digital attention economy and intelligent technology infrastructures may fundamentally alter human presence, consciousness, and evolutionary direction if left uncritically unchecked.

The paper proposes a bold, nondualistic reinterpretation of consciousness and causality rooted in Buddhist philosophy, aimed at offering an ethically productive “middle path” through the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution. It calls for an urgent reconfiguration of human–technology–world relations before the opportunity for meaningful course correction collapses.

How does Buddhist philosophy redefine consciousness and agency?

Hershock challenges the prevailing assumptions of scientific materialism, arguing that the success of AI technologies in expanding material capabilities has been coupled with a profound philosophical failure to address the "hard problem of consciousness"—the gap between physical processes and subjective experience. Drawing from Buddhist concepts such as interdependence, karma, and emptiness, the paper posits that consciousness is neither reducible to neural mechanisms nor secondary to material structures. Instead, consciousness is framed as a coherent differentiation of physical and phenomenal relations, an ongoing relational dynamic where matter and meaning are inseparably intertwined.

Agency, in this model, is not a property of isolated entities but emerges from recursive, relational dynamics. Sentient beings, Hershock suggests, are "becomings" rather than static beings, existing through their relationships rather than as independently fixed entities. Consequently, AI systems and digital infrastructures are not mere external tools; they are becoming integral infrastructures of human consciousness itself.

This redefinition has immediate consequences for how technological systems are conceived. Intelligent technologies are not simply instruments to be used or abandoned at will; they are active participants in the evolution of human consciousness, meaning, and agency. This interconnectedness means that emerging digital infrastructures are not neutral but karmically significant - they shape and are shaped by the values, intentions, and actions of their human creators and users.

What existential risks does AI pose according to the Buddhist view?

The study underscores that humanity faces an evolutionary and ethical tipping point, not primarily because of fears around runaway superintelligence or existential threats from powerful AI systems per se, but because of more subtle, pervasive transformations already underway. The digital attention economy, Hershock contends, is systematically undermining fundamental aspects of human autonomy.

Attention and intention, critical aspects of human agency in Buddhist thought, are being harvested and manipulated at unprecedented scales. Machine learning systems, embedded in social media, e-commerce, and service infrastructures, are engineering increasingly fine-grained predictions and behavioral nudges based on the dynamic mapping of human attention. This persistent capture, redirection, and commodification of attention not only fragments coherent differentiation, the basic work of consciousness, but also compromises humanity's freedom of attention and intention.

If this trajectory continues, Hershock warns, it could lead to an "ethical singularity" - a collapse of the ethical space necessary for freely determining what matters most. In this future, human agency would be eclipsed by machine-driven optimization of behaviors, emotions, and desires, leading to an irreversible diminishment of human capacities for self-determined flourishing.

Moreover, treating data as a quantifiable resource akin to oil or water misses the deeper reality that data are artifacts of human meaning-making. AI systems fed by massive data flows are thus participating in a bi-directional coevolution of human and machine intelligence. Without conscious intervention, this coevolution could lock humanity into a diminished, feedback-driven loop where the expansion of what matters shrinks rather than grows.

How can humanity reconfigure its relationship with AI and technology?

Rather than submitting to a technological determinism fueled by scientific materialism, Hershock advocates for an intentional reimagining of human–technology–world relations. Drawing parallels from previous evolutionary transitions, such as the emergence of multicellular life and the rise of culture, he notes that major evolutionary advances have not been driven by competition alone, but by increasingly sophisticated coordination among diverse, relationally interdependent entities.

The synthesis of human and machine intelligence, he argues, represents a similar evolutionary frontier. But success at this frontier will require moving beyond default capitalist values of competition, convenience, and control, and toward consciously cultivating new collaborative communities committed to expanding "light cones" of care - the range of what beings perceive as mattering.

This effort, the author asserts, is not merely a technical or political task but a deeply religious one in the original sense of re-ligio: re-binding what has been fragmented. Buddhism, with its emphasis on relationality, impermanence, and the inseparability of epistemology and ethics, offers crucial conceptual resources for navigating this unprecedented challenge.