r/zen • u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] • 19d ago

AI Zen Master

Since it's so easy to drop a Zen text or even multiple Zen texts into an llm and ask questions that the llm will answer from the standpoint of the text?

* www.reddit.com/r/Zen/wiki/getstarted

Doesn't it make sense that there would be a lot less confusion and a lot more interesting conversations??

Plus, if you have an llm answer questions about the texts then who better to explain why Zazen Shinto-Buddhism and Alan Epstein Watts are not part of the tradition?

Serious question.

Where are all my AI Zen Masters at?

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u/origin_unknown 6d ago edited 6d ago

See, to me, this is beyond just accepting that exhaust from internal combustion machines causes cancer, and more like justifying cancer because the exhaust mobile has cup holders.

This is like a celebrity "environmentalist" with their own private jet.

You perceive benefit that is greater than the cost you're able to perceive, so to you it's justified. Perceive more. Find the cost. In admitting no expertise in such an endeavor, end when you can justify no more use, and then maybe you can see more clearly.

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 6d ago

That analogy doesn't work because of problems like:

  1. Unregulated impacts on the environment are not a cost of technology. They are costs of lack of regulation regulated. Car exhaust is a regulation problem.

  2. Access to technoogy is expensive. If the pricepoint is offset by government spending, market distortions change everything. If you have data centers that don't pay for their own water, for example.

I don't think you understand how coat works and this means that "valid" in your mind is a fixed characteristic of a product. If LLMs were not subsidized AND regulated, the cost would increase to the point that the three areas I have mentioned would all see dimished impact.

I also think if you studied economics for a year, you'd just be a happier person. The world would still suck, but you'd recognize that it is absolutely choice and not oppression.

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u/origin_unknown 6d ago

I disagree. Rules don't keep people from starting fires that burn down the forest. Rules don't regulate Zippo to keep their lighters from starting forest fires.

Marlboro doesn't pay a litter tax because people flip their butts out.

It's not a matter of external authority.

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 6d ago edited 6d ago

So far nobody agrees with you.

By so far I mean human history and by nobody I mean cultural attitudes toward law.

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u/origin_unknown 6d ago

No,.so far, all you will admit is nobody agrees with me.

But if I made it all up, then you're arguing with a madman.

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 6d ago

I updated my comment while you were commenting.