A Conceptual Framework for Artificial Intelligence Combining Buddhism and the Free Energy Principle

Summary

A theory is proposed that integrates the Buddhist philosophy of vijñapti-mātratā, which describes consciousness as a multilayered structure of manifestation and information storage, with the free energy principle from neuroscience. The free energy principle holds that self-organized systems minimize informational free energy through active inference to reduce prediction errors. The integrated framework could enable artificial intelligence to perceive not only knowledge but also actions including human-like emotional expressions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have been made in recent years. There is a theory that brain activity in humans is based on the free energy principle, which is a comprehensive theory that attempts to explain the structure and function of cognition and the brain’s behavior. For any self-organized system to be in equilibrium within its environment, the agent performs active inference to minimize the system’s informational free energy and reduce the prediction error from the current presumption. On the other hand, the theory based on the vijñapti-mātratā of Buddhist philosophy explains consciousness through a multilayered structure comprising manifestation and information storage and seems to result in a certain degree of compatibility with AI systems that perform calculations and store information. Therefore, an AI that integrates the vijñapti-mātratā philosophy with the free energy principle could achieve performance, enabling us to perceive not only knowledge but also actions that include human-like emotional expressions. We hereby report that an AI system theory that integrates the theory of vijñapti-mātratā with the principle of free energy.

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