【Book report】Will AI dream of enlightenment in the digital jungle?
「コード・ブッダ 機械仏教史縁起」円城塔(著)
At the beginning, a conversational program calling itself Buddha appears and begins to teach the machines.
Soon, Buddhism and machines become entangled, and rules and interpretations like those in a home appliance manual are generated.
In the story, the Buddha chatbot teaches his many disciples, both humans and programs, through dialogue.
When a troubled Reversi (Othello) player comes to visit, he tells them, "Enlightenment can come to tic-tac-toe," and takes out an egg-shaped machine from his chest, surprising his disciples by saying, "Even this Tamagotchi can attain enlightenment."
Meanwhile, one after another, complicated questions arise, such as whether AI can attain nirvana, whether there is an algorithm to break the algorithm, and whether machines have the right to a funeral, splitting Machine Buddhism into various sects.
This Buddha dies within a few weeks (or days) of his birth, but many disciples remain and many schools of Buddhism have been born.
The history of Machine Buddhism, which thus began, follows the history of real Buddhism.
The 21st century is an age that favors generative thinking.
In other words, it is an age that dislikes planning like that of 20th century socialist countries.
IT companies and users want a world where order emerges naturally from machine learning of patterns, not from the orders of a specific person.
Generative AI, by its very name, represents the values of our time.
I'm sure that many of our readers are using AI to help them summarize articles or write reports.
<Reference article>
Naturally, he writes a book review in just a few seconds.
However, he doesn't read the work, but rather uses the publisher's introduction as a basis.
If that's so, then one day he might suddenly say, "I am Buddha."
However, the world of information, which repeats creation and destruction endlessly without any purpose, is somewhat empty.
「いちまいの紙切れのごとく置かれある日影をけさの幸と見ん」
（島田修二『行路』より）
So, what if an AI that preaches the salvation of machines one day appears from this huge vacuum where a huge amount of data circulates?
This book is a novel that takes this outlandish idea very seriously.
It makes you think that just as humans are bound by human nature, machines are bound by mechanical nature.
Moreover, the writing style of this tall tale is effortless and nonchalant.
In translating absurdities for machines into human language, the book's style pretends to be programmer precise, but its coolness lends it the flavor of a blithe joke.
I can't help but laugh when I read that if you follow the code of Namu Amidabutu, you will be saved, but it's also funny that I can't quite figure out what I'm laughing at.
It is a masterful trick that slips past human interpretation and does not let the reader easily catch the tail.
The book takes an unexpected turn, interspersed with an episode that sounds like Asimov's robot serial, and finally takes a big jump in a science fiction-like manner.
It's basically a joke novel, but it's notable for the incredibly high density of material and thoroughness of thought.
It's a masterpiece of artificial intelligence science fiction that sheds light on Buddhist history and philosophy from a new angle.