AI is all the buzz these days. From a short-term perspective, it evokes tremendous uncertainty and fear; from a medium-term perspective, it feels like an engine for massive disruption (at best, rewriting all the rules of order and at worst, risking mass extinction); and from an infinite perspective, it's yet another opportunity to ask the simple question: what would love do? 

Pondering all three timelines, a few days ago, we launched a pioneering effort: ServiceSpaceGPT. It is an AI that has practically ALL our curated content from the last 25 years – from Awakin readings to DailyGood articles to KindSpring stories to Awakin Call transcripts to our blogs and more. Instead of searching for keyword matches like traditional Googling, you can now engage in meaningful dialogue with the entirety of that wisdom. It’s stunningly powerful and awe-inspiring. And just starts to scratch the surface of what's feasible in the coming months and year.

Yet, this is hardly a techno-optimist lens. Even back in 1999, our stance wasn’t that the Internet would change the world, but rather that we could leverage the modern context to “make it cool to give” and change ourselves along the way. That service need not be luxury sport, nor a retirement hobby; it can be an opportunity to unlock the deepest wisdom of the heart, here and now. Without a collective threshold of that wisdom, humanity will unnecessarily invite more suffering. Unfortunately, compounding catastrophes are paralyzing us before we can pause and take stock. Where television took 75 years to reach a million users, ChatGPT took 5 days. And last week, all global AI experts signed a 22-word memo: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Now we have to reckon with the fact that we’ve just put this grenade in everyone’s palm, quite literally.

How will we respond as a species? If the “master’s tools cannot dismantle the house”, what are the new tools? Who must we be to catalyze the skilful union of algorithmic intelligence, evolutionary intuition, and collective emergence? What creative expressions of inner-transformation driven service are possible in today’s context? 

If these questions are resonant for you, here's a more context on what's emerging for us these days. Moreover, we're also launching a special Service Fellows team in anticipation of our need (for collective intuition) in the coming times -- we'd love for you to join as well. :)

Shantideva's poetry in the 8th century still feel so apt: “For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then, may I too abide to dispel the misery of the world.”