Artificial intelligence is not merely another invention but a reinvention of life, BAPS monk Brahmavihari Swami said at the NDTV World Summit, warning that humanity must guard against the technology reshaping the way people think and form relationships.
“AI is the biggest breakthrough humanity has seen,” he told NDTV’s Aditya Raj Kaul, comparing its potential impact with inventions such as fire, the light bulb and the wheel.
“While fire transformed human life, the light bulb changed how people experienced the night and the wheel made movement faster, AI is different,” he said.
“AI is the only invention that is going to change things within us,” Brahmavihari Swami added. He was participating in the session titled ‘Beyond Intelligence: AI, Faith and the Meaning of Being Human’.
He warned that humanity could be approaching a stage where it creates an entirely new species, pointing to the emergence of AI agents that can perform tasks with increasing autonomy.
“Till now, washing machines did not reproduce smaller washing machines. AI is reproducing on its own, it has agents,” he said.
Describing AI as a technology that has a mind of its own and continues to evolve, the monk cautioned against allowing it to dominate human thinking.
“If you allow it to hijack your mind, if it costs your soul, we have something to worry,” he said.
He also called for global efforts to ensure that AI remains under human control, arguing that faith must play a role in how the technology is handled.
“If it’s uncertainty and you face it with fear, you’re more likely to make the wrong choices. And if you face something with faith, You may not make the right choices, but you are likely to make the right choices in this situation when it’s really out of our control, it’s out of the box. I think the world has to face it with faith. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean that we cannot have the red lights that control it. So it’s both. Understand the fear but face it with faith,” the monk said.
Responding to a question about whether machines could replace human relationships, particularly as people increasingly turn to them for advice, Brahmavihari Swami said his greater concern was not machines becoming more human, but humans becoming more like machines.
“I am not worried about machines thinking and behaving like humans, but humans will start thinking like machines,” he said.
Brahmavihari Swami is a senior monk of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a Hindu spiritual organisation with a global presence. He is associated with BAPS’ international outreach and interfaith engagement, and has represented the organisation in discussions involving spirituality, ethics and contemporary global challenges.
He is the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha spokesperson and the head of BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi.
