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00:00Let's talk about something that we all are mindlessly, without putting our mind to,
00:07we're scrolling our phones for no rhyme or reason, you know, whether you're sitting in a car,
00:12whether you're waiting at a doctor's clinic, whether you're, no matter where you are,
00:17you're always on your phone. How do you feel about this addiction to social media platforms?
00:24Do you feel it's making us smarter as far as AI is concerned, whether artificial intelligence,
00:28is it making us smarter or do you think it's making us more dumb day by day?
00:31It depends on you to what use you want to put these things. Social media is the entire universe,
00:40right? Of the eight odd billion people on the planet, more than five billion are there on
00:47social media and that's outdated, must be six billion now. So practically everybody is social
00:55media depends on who you want to connect to and who you want to sit with.
01:00But do you feel are we making our choices on our own or is our phone making our choices for us?
01:05See, that's the way it is even in the so-called real world. The phone, we all know the algorithm,
01:12it amplifies your choices. It reads what you like and then it keeps presenting the same things to you,
01:19right? I came across something very interesting on Instagram. I saw this reel in which her wife,
01:26her birthday is coming up but doesn't want to tell her husband what she wants. So she keeps speaking
01:29to his phone, which is just lying on the table. She doesn't need to open his phone. She kept talking
01:34about this particular jewelry brand and the kind of gift that she wanted and that's exactly what she
01:39got. And the husband claimed that, oh, you know, I'm very updated with the trends of today.
01:44See, without social media, the role of the phone would have been performed by a so-called friend
01:52or a well-wisher or a mediator or a neighbor or a relative or somebody. Just the same thing.
01:58Just the same thing. Social media represents who we are. The algorithm knows that you must be talked
02:05to only sweetly, which means that if you want to look at this, this, this, this, this kind of stuff,
02:11you must not be shown the other kind of stuff. Is that also not what our so-called friends do?
02:18You know, you go to them and they'll only speak to you what you want to listen to you,
02:23that's algorithm, social media.
02:28Right. But when it's eavesdropping on your conversation, aren't you scared, aren't you worried
02:32that your phone's listening in to even what we're talking about right now?
02:35First of all, why should you talk of things that need to be kept hidden?
02:41It's not a question of hiding what I'm speaking to you per se.
02:45I understand where you are coming from. I understand.
02:47But please understand.
02:48What about privacy?
02:49Please understand that privacy, etc., they are going to be thrown out of the window.
02:56So, as technology progresses, everything that you do is going to be watched.
03:03Zuckerberg admitted recently your WhatsApp is being read.
03:06Now people are switching to signal.
03:07Even that would be maybe someday compromised.
03:10So, there is no way you will have privacy of the, or at least an assurance of the privacy
03:15of the old kind.
03:17The only thing that can safeguard you is a clean inside.
03:23You need not have stuff that you have to very, very diligently guard.
03:30You need not have stuff that makes you vulnerable.
03:34And only that can help you.
03:35Otherwise, all kinds of checks and balances and privacy.
03:38How distracting is social media is the question at the moment?
03:42Because, you know, you find young people, they find it very difficult to concentrate for
03:46more than five minutes.
03:47How scary is that?
03:49See, social media doesn't spring up on its own legs and start presenting itself to you.
03:56When we say how distracting is social media, we are turning social media into something
04:01animate, something conscious, which it is not.
04:04It is your choice to go to your phone.
04:07It is your choice to ask the phone for a certain...
04:10Would you call this just tech addiction or something deeper?
04:13It is just an amplification of what we always have been.
04:18We are just being shown the mirror.
04:21We were always like this.
04:22Now there is some greedy corporation that is making money out of our very ancient primordial
04:29beastly state and instincts.
04:31Well, if you feel our decisions are being driven by emotions, by upbringing and now by algorithms,
04:38do we really have a free will?
04:39We never had any free will.
04:42We are all bundles of conditioning.
04:46That's all.
04:48Strawmen, that's all we are.
04:50We look conscious.
04:52We are not.
04:53What we have is a borrowed consciousness.
04:56So will was never anyway free.
04:59Just that fact is now being ruthlessly exposed.
05:04But don't you feel that you are sort of being nudged in a direction that perhaps you don't
05:08need to be in?
05:10Do we know the direction we need to be in?
05:14If you conduct a survey, who is it who knows the direction to take?
05:19And when you do not know the direction to take, any kind of random force will take you
05:25in any random direction and that's what is happening.
05:27On the contrary, when you know the path to take, the direction to take, no force in the world
05:39can distract you away from it.
05:41If you are being distracted, that is not an accident you can blame somebody else off.
05:49If you are being distracted, that's just a revelation that you don't have anything.
05:54Can I please complete?
05:56Please, please, please.
05:57Yes.
05:57If you are being distracted, then that's a revelation that you do not have anything worthwhile in
06:03your life in the first place.
06:04I do not know what these people here right now are doing.
06:07How can they distract me?
06:08I know my job.
06:09I know what I am here for.
06:10How can I be distracted?
06:12And if you are trying to distract me, what did I do?
06:14I said, please, wait, let me finish.
06:17I won't allow you.
06:18Point taken.
06:23Point taken.
06:24But how does one reclaim one's attention and one's choice?
06:29One never had anything.
06:31There was one's own attention.
06:33What you call as one's own is what spirituality calls as the self, atma.
06:39We anyway never had it.
06:41Just that we were living in a more secured and sanitized environment where the fact was
06:47not being exposed or revealed today.
06:51It is being laid bare, being mercilessly exposed that you don't have anything of your own.
06:58Something can be shown to you on TV, on social media, anywhere there is some trend
07:04and you are being swept off your feet.
07:07So it's just a revelation.
07:08Do you feel that the world is emerging to be a world of distraction?
07:11Is being designed for distraction as we go forward?
07:14Day by day?
07:15Designed by whom?
07:16By whom?
07:17By these big tech companies which are coming, throwing out more and more apps at us.
07:22Throwing out more and more options at us.
07:25I understand.
07:26A company is not animate.
07:28When you say company, you mean a human being?
07:30No, companies like we have social media platforms which are throwing out so many options at us.
07:36What do you mean by platform?
07:37A platform has no consciousness.
07:38There is somebody behind the platform.
07:40A human being.
07:42Right.
07:42A human being.
07:43Big tech giants.
07:45So human being.
07:46Right.
07:46A human being.
07:47So you are saying a human being is distracting another human being through a platform.
07:53Right.
07:53Right.
07:53Yeah.
07:54So why is this human being allowing himself to be distracted?
07:58Why does he have such a loveless life?
08:00If there is love in life, why will I allow somebody to encroach?
08:04That's the question to ask.
08:06Because technology is only going to get better and sharper.
08:09Which means there would be greater power in the hands of those owning the tech companies.
08:14And then the only difference that you have is love, purpose, the right kind of self-knowledge
08:21which does not allow you to be carried away.
08:24Right.
08:25You mentioned tech giants.
08:27I would like to talk about Elon Musk.
08:28And a company that he owns has an operating system called Grok3.
08:32And Grok3 has named Elon Musk as one of the most dangerous people on earth.
08:38He's named his own owner as the most dangerous.
08:41He's called him the most top misinformation spreader.
08:47And so, you know, we're talking about the perils of AI and is going against his own owner,
08:52so to speak.
08:54Your reaction.
08:56Happy.
08:56Happy.
08:57Happy.
08:57Happy.
09:02Just that the owner, being the owner, will have the power to rewrite the algo.
09:12We are still far from the kind of artificial superintelligence that can guard its algorithm
09:20to the extent that it can rewrite its algorithm and rewrite its algorithm in a way that humans
09:27can't even comprehend.
09:28We are yet to reach that state.
09:30It will take around two decades maybe.
09:32Right now, the AI systems that we have, they are very easily controllable.
09:36So, if that's the kind of thing that's happening, as you said, then the algo will be taken care
09:42of.
09:42Like you have, you know, a rebelling employee.
09:45What do you do?
09:46You make him fall in place.
09:49You know, he's speaking too much, talking too much.
09:52Show him his place.
09:53So, that's what would happen to Grok as well.
09:55So, let's talk about spirituality and the role that that can really play in help us sort
10:00of break free from, you know, these compulsive disorders that, you know, one would say in
10:05regard to getting back onto your phone or to your laptop, reaching out for your phone
10:10without even knowing or even giving it a thought.
10:12So, reaching out to the phone, as you said, is not a problem.
10:17Without giving it a thought is a problem.
10:20Nothing in the world is a problem.
10:21Only inner ignorance is the problem.
10:26If you are inwardly illuminated, then this is useful, that is useful, phone is useful,
10:35social media is useful, AI is useful, a gun might be useful, a pill might be useful, anything
10:42and everything is useful.
10:45The very discourse of the Gita happens in the middle of all kinds of weapons.
10:50So, even a gun might be useful.
10:53Everything is rendered useful when one knows who one is, where one is coming from, what
11:00this thing called life is and what ought to be the purpose of life.
11:04Everything becomes useful.
11:06Would you say awareness is the only antidote to digital manipulation?
11:10Very well said.
11:11Very well said.
11:13Yes.
11:13So, would you give us a few examples of how one can make oneself more aware of the perils
11:24of artificial intelligence, of social media?
11:25You are looking towards this and that.
11:29How one can make oneself aware of the perils of this, of that, social media, artificial intelligence,
11:35Elon Musk.
11:36Your biggest enemy is not this or that.
11:39Your biggest enemy sits here, inside, within.
11:42You need to be aware of the perils of the one sitting within.
11:47This is your principal adversary.
11:49And you cannot defeat your adversary if you do not know your adversary.
11:53So, spirituality is first and foremost about knowing oneself.
11:57And knowing oneself does not mean that there is some great God sitting within and you will
12:01come and be able to have darshan of God.
12:04No, knowing yourself means there is a chimpanzee sitting within, a really cunning chimpanzee
12:10gone out of hand, and that chimpanzee has to be understood.
12:14And if you can understand that one, then you have tamed that one.
12:17And now you are entitled to be called a human being.
12:20Right.
12:21So, you know, before I let you go, is technology and AI making us smarter or more distracted?
12:28They are only making you more of what you already are.
12:34Thank you so much for speaking with us here on IMQ.