AI, Humanity - McConaughey, Jane Goodall & Sadhguru

In September 2024, Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey and Dr. Jane Goodall DBE joined Sadhguru for the session “Leading with Purpose, Building for Legacy” at an event hosted by Dreamforce – Salesforce’s annual flagship event in San Francisco.

Transcript

Afternoon.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Very excited about this panel.

I think we really need no introduction,

But I will say when I first got this assignment to moderate this panel,

I thought,

What does a primatologist,

A award-winning Hollywood actor,

And a renowned guru have in common?

So it turns out,

A lot.

And it was fun to do the research.

I'm just going to give you an example of what they have in common.

All of them are best-selling authors.

All of them have been in major motion pictures.

All of them are on the road for about eight months of the year with their work.

I'm a 12-year-old.

12,

She's probably 11.

Amazing.

You got young kids.

All of them are motivational speakers and attract thousands to their talks.

All of them have started major nonprofits that have had an incredible impact on the world.

And all of them care deeply about the future of our planet and the future of our children.

So I'm really excited to have you all here today.

And then I got worried about,

Well,

With all the wisdom then here,

How am I going to get in more than one question?

So it's going to be a fun dialogue.

We're going to cover some ground.

We're going to start with the title of this session,

Which is Leading for Purpose.

And so I'd like to know from all of you,

You know,

What does that mean to you,

To lead from purpose?

Why don't we start with you,

Jane?

Me?

Yeah.

What does it mean to lead with purpose?

Well,

Quite honestly,

If you didn't have purpose,

I don't believe you could lead.

Hmm.

Agree?

Yeah,

True.

Yeah,

I love the answer.

And Matthew has something called the 13 Truths,

Which are super cool.

And my answer won't be as succinct as Miss Goodall's.

I mean,

Look,

Purpose,

I mean,

In my travels,

The thing that I've noticed that seemed to be a common denominator of whatever we define happiness as is just having a reason to get out of bed the morning,

Something to look forward to.

And that's,

I think,

The beginning of purpose.

Whether that is in a place,

In farmers in Mali,

Africa,

Where their reason to get out of bed is to go tend the crops that day for that evening's meal.

That's their daily purpose to sustain.

Purpose gives us,

It's when we have something to invest in,

I think,

That we feel like we can build.

Like,

It's kind of,

We all want to have some sort of traction that we feel like we've evolved from yesterday to today to tomorrow.

And that doesn't happen all the time.

A lot of things are,

You know,

One-offs,

But when we have purpose and it's something that we're building,

We can feel it grow and sometimes go backwards,

But keep moving forward in the big picture.

Through our lifetime and then hopefully something to leave behind to continue to grow for the people that follow us to grow.

That's the immortal purposes are,

I think,

The best ones to have,

If we can have them,

That we live beyond.

So,

We can't lead without purpose.

It needs to be something that is ever-evolving.

Yeah.

And that we can leave behind.

And what would you add?

Well,

Namaskaram everyone.

See,

Every life,

From the tiniest life to human beings,

Everything has its own purpose.

The little purpose that an ant has for the ant is as important or whatever I think is very important.

So,

The significance of human beings are consciously recognizing a purpose.

Everybody has a purpose of their own little thing.

When they leave their home in the morning,

They're going somewhere with a purpose of their own.

But once you become human,

Is the purpose just of survival?

Is it just about bread or is it just about fulfilling this and that?

Or have you made your purpose as inclusive as possible?

This is the significant aspect of a human being,

That we can think,

Emote and act beyond our survival process.

The purpose of every life is,

It wants to find its fulfillment.

So,

It is not about every one of us coming up with our own purpose,

Seeing how to choose an action which will fulfill every purpose that every life is aspiring for.

So,

You don't lead with purpose.

Once you identify the course of action,

The purpose leads you.

Hmm,

That's beautiful.

And it's a… it's also sort of a nice segue into what I want to talk about around climate,

Which is what we all work on at some level.

And it's about purposeful action in this space.

And I know you have done incredible work,

Sadhguru,

With soil and with trees and… No,

That is a tragedy on the world.

I do something,

Which is just a drop in the ocean and everybody thinks it's incredible.

That's tragic.

Hmm?

That we do a little and everybody says this is incredible,

Because others unfortunately have not even done that much.

But with human intelligence and capability that we have,

And now whatever this AI everything,

What… whatever… whatever I have done,

A billion times more needs to be done.

Otherwise,

It's not a solution.

Because the purpose is not about fulfilling yourself.

If I close my eyes,

I'm done.

I don't have to do anything.

But action is about solution.

Hmm.

I did something,

Is not the important thing.

Did it lead to a solution?

Well,

A few steps we take.

But if the whole world takes the same steps,

Then we genuinely as a generation,

We would have found solutions.

Otherwise,

A few people will slog,

Some will be recognized,

Some will be dismissed,

Some will be awarded,

Some will be dumped.

But the purpose is not fulfilled.

Hmm.

So,

It's a… it's a process of innovation,

Experimentation,

Iteration,

Failure,

Success.

I wouldn't see it that way.

See,

The problems on the planet are very simple.

And everybody knows generally,

Everybody knows what's the problem.

They may not know all the details.

They all know what's the problem.

In a vague way,

Everybody knows the solution.

But nobody takes action,

Because everybody thinks somebody else should do it.

So,

When I started the Save Soil Movement,

That's what I realized.

I went around in many countries.

I met the agriculture ministers,

Environment ministers,

Bureaucrats,

All across.

Everybody knew the problem.

Everybody vaguely knew the solution.

But it looked like they were waiting for an idiot to bell the cat.

Then I said,

Here I am.

Because it takes an idiot to bell the cat,

Because nobody else wants to do it.

Not because they don't know.

They know there is a problem.

And they know,

If all of us act,

There is a solution.

But they think it's not their problem.

They want to pass it on to their children.

Because that's where it'll go ultimately.

The people that you love,

You give them your problems and go away.

Great way.

Well,

This one here takes a lot of action.

This one takes a lot of action.

And I and I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about the action that you have been taking,

That you are taking through JGI,

Through Roots and Shoots,

One thing the two of you have in common is policy at a governmental,

National level.

But let's share with these good folks the work of JGI.

Well,

The world of JGI,

As I don't have two hours to talk about it,

I will just pick out the salient parts.

And first of all,

You know,

I began as a very young girl wanting to go to Africa,

Live with wild animals and write books about them.

Everybody laughed at me.

We're going back 80 years.

I'm 90 now.

So going back 80 years,

I was told girls couldn't do that sort of thing.

But I was really lucky.

And there are young women out here,

Young women who have children.

And I was so lucky to have a mother who said,

If you really want to do this,

You must work really hard,

Take advantage of every opportunity and don't give up.

And she was the only one.

Everybody else laughed at me.

How would I do that?

I was just a mere girl.

So anyway,

As many of you know,

I did get to Africa.

I did get the opportunity to live with and learn from not just any animal,

But the one most like us,

The chimpanzee.

And I spent so many amazing years learning about these,

Our closest living relatives.

And what is so extraordinary,

Maybe it's not to some of you,

But I wish it was,

That as recently as 1962,

Well,

That may not seem recent to some of you.

It seems pretty recent to me.

I hadn't been to college because we couldn't afford it,

But my mentor said I had to get a degree.

There was no time for an undergraduate degree,

So I had to go for a PhD.

And he got me a place in Cambridge University in England.

And I was nervous.

Imagine how I felt when I was told,

Well,

Everything you've done is wrong.

You shouldn't have given the chimpanzees names.

They should have had numbers.

You can't talk about them.

They're just animals.

You can't talk about them having personalities,

Minds,

And emotions.

Those are unique to humans.

That's what was thought by science then.

There was an unbroken line between us and them.

But because the chimpanzees are so like us,

Because they kiss,

Embrace,

Hold hands,

Pet one another,

Because males compete for dominance,

Standing upright,

Swaggering,

Bristling,

Shaking their fist,

And reminding me so much of some human male politician.

Watching the mothers raising their young ones,

Long childhood,

Because like us,

Young chimps have a lot to learn by observing,

Imitating,

And practicing.

Because they use tools.

Because we now know in different parts of Africa,

There are different chimpanzee cultures.

And it was a shock to find that like us,

They have a dark,

Aggressive,

Brutal side.

They're capable of a kind of primitive war and killing.

But like us,

They have a gentle side,

Love,

Compassion,

And true altruism,

As when an unrelated male may adopt an infant whose mother has died and save that child's life.

So gradually,

Science has changed because of the chimps.

And that's opened a doorway into understanding other animals too.

And we now know,

I mean,

Did you know that goldfish can be trained to play soccer?

I'm not joking.

You can Google it.

And there's a Chinese scientist,

And he's got three goldfish on each side,

And they will try and get the ball into the opposite goal.

I mean,

I've watched them do it.

So,

You know,

And we now know that trees can communicate.

So there's so much about nature that we have learned.

And so from being in my dream world out in Africa,

In the rainforest,

Feeling a very strong spiritual connection with the natural world,

And then realizing that across Africa,

Numbers were dropping and forests were being cut down,

And therefore feeling I must now leave my paradise and go out and see what I could do by then.

There were different field study sites.

When I began,

It was just me.

And so I visited them.

I learned a lot about the plight of the chimps,

But I learned about the plight of the people living in and around chimpanzee habitat,

Crippling poverty,

Lack of good health and education facilities,

Farmland overused and infertile.

And it came to a head when I flew over the tiny Gombe National Park,

Which is where our chimpanzee study is still going on in its 63rd year with a team of researchers.

But this is back in the late 1980s.

What had been part of the great forest equatorial belt across Africa,

I now look down in horror from this tiny,

With horror from this tiny plain,

To see a little island of forest that was Gombe National Park and all around Bear Hills.

And it was clear there were more people living there than the land could support.

Too poor to buy food from elsewhere,

Struggling to survive.

Why were they destroying the environment?

Because they needed to make money from charcoal or timber,

Or because they needed new land to grow more food for their growing families.

And so that's when it hit me.

If we don't help these people find ways of making a living without destroying the environment,

We can't save chimps,

Forests or anything else.

And so we began a program.

There's no time to go into it.

You can Google it.

Chukari,

T-A-C-A-R-E.

Very holistic,

Including things like going into the village with a local team of Tanzanians and asking the villagers what we could do to help them.

Not arrogant white people going in and saying,

Oh,

Well,

This is what we're going to do to make your lives better.

No.

And so that program is now in all the villages throughout Chimp Range in Tanzania.

And it's in six other African countries.

And it's including now up-to-date technology like GIS,

GPS,

Satellite imagery.

And in some places we're using camera traps.

So this kind of technology is coming into our research now.

And then finally,

I think this is going to be another question.

Is it about youth?

You can keep going.

All right.

Well,

Traveling around the world trying to raise money for these programs to help people out of poverty.

And,

You know,

It doesn't come enough into conservation talking about the fact that people living in poverty are destroying their environment.

In wild areas,

Because what I've just said,

But in urban areas people are buying the cheapest junk food because that's all they can afford.

And that food is harming the environment almost always.

That's why it's cheap.

Anyway,

Trying to raise money for all this and realizing if young people are not understanding the need for protecting the environment,

We might as well give up now.

So then we began our program Roots & Shoots,

Which is really exciting.

We're about to have a partnership with Salesforce around the world helping.

So it began with 12 high school students in Tanzania wanting to know what they could do to make things better.

They didn't like poaching in the national parks.

They didn't like street children with no homes.

They didn't like people who threw stones at stray dogs.

All sorts of things like that.

So right from the beginning,

Roots & Shoots was a program where we said every single individual,

And that means every one of you and us,

We make an impact on the planet every single day.

And we are lucky.

We get to choose what sort of impact we make.

Some people can't.

We can.

And Roots & Shoots from the start was a bottom-up.

Young people get together and choose projects to make the world better for people,

For animals,

For the environment.

So what began with 12 high school students now has members from kindergarten through university and grown-ups as well,

And it's in 70 countries.

And I think we have some Roots & Shoots students in the audience,

So thank you for being here with us.

We're excited to co-launch a base camp together.

For the parents here,

Engage your kids in the program,

Share the word.

It's an incredible program globally.

And Matthew,

I know young people are very important to you.

I know the climate is very important to you,

And so I'll kind of let you take this question where you want,

But I know you've supported the Surfrider Foundation.

I think you just worked on a film around the campfire rescue,

Which for Bay Area people.

.

.

The fire in 2018,

Pimpin' Paradise.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So kind of where do you,

What was that experience like for you,

And what are you working on as it relates to climate?

Well,

Let me talk about with the youth first.

Because rather than a certain policy,

And there are some things that we dealt with with that film and Surfrider Foundation,

Etc.

,

If the younger generations are thinking differently between their ears and understanding it differently between their head and their heart,

That's just habits will change how we live.

I think you said each one of us and how we have an effect on the climate and how we go about our life.

So prevent before you need to cure.

That's what I've,

What's always turned me on.

And where did that lead me to?

Kids,

Youth.

Camilla and I started the Just Keep Living Foundation to be a curriculum in Title I schools in the United States.

These are 50% dropout rates,

Food stamps,

And schools.

And what we started was a program where these kids can go.

We found out,

We didn't know this,

But we found out it was actually a safe place for them to go to school,

Which we didn't think that was going to be an asset of the whole curriculum.

We said,

Okay,

We're going to teach you physical fitness goals.

You may come in and say,

I want to make the soccer team,

But I have trouble running 100 yards.

We're going to help you get fit for that.

You may say,

I want to lose three pounds so I can fit in the prom dress in three months.

We're going to help you reach that goal.

Nutrition goals,

Where we say,

We don't have anything against cheeseburgers,

But here's how to go spend that $52 you spent with your family and go through the supermarket and go down the produce section and maybe get a little meat and beans.

And you can also go home and you get the added value of cooking with your family,

Which we believe in.

They all do community service,

Which was our biggest surprise because I would not have given my Saturday mornings at 430 a.

M.

In high school to go clean a beach or a highway or to pack for the troops,

But 100% of these young men and women do because that's actually the part that gives them some ownership.

And they're not getting a one-way ticket of you're not just giving to me.

I get to give something back.

And then we have a halo of gratitude.

Gratitude,

We do believe in our family and in our foundation that the more you're thankful for,

The more you will create in your life to be thankful for.

Where they all gather around and they share out loud something to be thankful for.

The biggest compliment we've had on that is students saying,

Oh,

It's our guru.

I have that in my life,

But I've never been thankful for it.

And you just thanked,

You just were thankful and had gratitude for that in your life.

Oh,

Now I realize I should be thankful for that.

We're in over 50 schools.

Well,

That's the idea is,

You know,

When we've had some students come in in the ninth grade and being gangs or into drugs and then four years later,

They're a valedictorian or they're getting a scholarship to help show them options.

So much of what we're learning is that most of them just don't know better or know of a different path.

So that,

That's youth prevent before the cure is really where most of most of Camilla and I's work has been put in.

We just started this green light grant initiative.

There was all that bipartisan safer communities act that made billions of dollars that came out with that to help safe in schools through whether it's physically safety in schools or through more mental health counselors.

And what we found is after that three,

That billions of dollars that was available,

Nobody was applying.

No American schools were very few were applying.

And the ones that were applying weren't getting granted or getting the grants awarded.

And so we found there was a one,

A big awareness problem and two,

A big communication problem from the schools through the red tape to the agencies and the government that have this money that want to give this money.

That's the thing.

The government wants to spend this money,

But they sit in there saying,

If we don't spend it by 2026,

We're going to reallocate it.

And this thing's over.

We were like,

What do you want to spend it?

They're like,

Yes,

We want to spend it.

You have to show us the need.

Well,

We found out that these superintendents that have to fill out these grants are usually wearing three,

Four different hats in the school.

They don't have the time or the expertise.

We help them.

We give them grant writers and we help them write those grants.

And then the government goes,

We see the need.

Here's the funds to safe in your schools.

So that's that's those are the two main purpose driven things that Camilla and I are working on right now.

Yeah.

And and mainly the U.

S.

And what I love about what you're working on and similar to what you said around service being a really important element,

Gratitude being a really important element.

I think,

By the way,

What I've learned with young people in the context of service is the great antidepressant also.

Yeah.

The best antidepressant to really kind of step yourself up and out of your world and in a world where we have mental health crisis with young people at record levels.

You know,

The more we can be of service,

I think the better we all are.

And so I love what you're doing.

I love how you're taking on the system.

The government is not always easy to kind of navigate through.

So what a gift to do.

We heard that earlier with Michael Regan.

Yeah.

We have the head of the EPA.

He was saying we can't we can't do it.

We need private and public,

More private and public partnerships.

And we need citizens to push us.

Right.

He said very blankly.

Yeah,

I think that's right.

And so I think coming together,

Getting involved in these initiatives for folks here,

I think would be very fulfilling for you and very meaningful for this team.

And so I'd like to the audience to hear a little bit about the Isha Foundation,

The incredible that work that you do around the world.

And now how how can folks here at Dreamforce get behind your efforts as well?

Well,

I won't go about listing a few things to do that we do.

The important thing is,

Fundamental concern is the human being.

Because the nature of the human being is such,

If they attune themselves well,

They are the greatest solution.

If they are not tuned properly,

They are the greatest problem,

Not just for their lives,

But for every other life.

Every other life is suffering on this planet because of us.

So,

Jane with her courage and commitment focused on one species,

Which made a difference,

At least the narrative changed in the world about those wonderful creatures.

But we must know,

In the last 70 years,

84% of the vertebrate population on the planet has disappeared.

So,

One thing that people need to understand,

This is… this is not an environmental lesson I'm saying,

This is a spiritual process.

Because what is physical process means is that it's about our body,

Its survival,

Its needs and its fulfillment.

Physicality comes only because of a defined boundary.

This is my body,

That is your body.

This means we define this by the boundaries of this body.

In fact,

The essence of physicality is a defined boundary.

If there is no defined boundary,

There is no such thing as physicality in the universe.

So,

What we are referring to as a spiritual process is,

That in some way,

You transcend the limitations of your physical experience,

And in turn,

Your physical identity.

If this doesn't happen,

We will create one after another problem.

As we get more and more enabled and empowered,

We will create bigger and bigger problems because our intelligence functions according to the identifications and experiences that we have.

So,

My essential work is to expand human experience in such a way,

That if you sit here,

If you sit here with your eyes closed,

You experience everything in this hall as yourself.

See,

Right now,

Whatever number of kilograms we carry right now as our body,

We were not born like this.

See,

Look at the baby,

We were born like this,

But we became like this.

Just the food that we ate,

From how many different places this came.

When it was out there on the land,

We called it soil.

When it came up,

We called it a crop.

When it came into the kitchen,

We called it food.

Then when we went inside,

We said,

This is me.

So,

This process we have misunderstood,

And it's not in our experience.

We're just looking at just what is within me as me,

Not everything else.

We clearly know from our experience that if we do not transact in terms of respiration,

You won't exist here for more than two minutes.

No,

We did in 1998,

When some UN agencies came to Southern India and made a prediction that by 2025,

Sixty percent of the Southern India will be in desertification process.

I don't like predictions,

Because predictions don't take into consideration what is beating in the human heart.

Cold statistics and you project,

This is what will happen.

So,

I wanted to make sure I just drove around Southern India by myself,

To see what is happening.

Then I saw it won't go till 2025,

It will happen sooner,

Because three rivers in where we are,

The state we are,

Perennial rivers had gone dry,

Hundreds of tributaries had gone dry,

It's just a question of time.

So,

We started a project called Project Green Hands.

When I told people,

I made a barefoot calculation,

See right now,

In the state where we are,

At that time I'm saying,

In early… I mean in 1998,

I said,

See,

The average green cover on this… in this state is sixteen percent,

But the national aspiration is thirty-three percent.

So,

I just made a barefoot calculation and said,

If we plant hundred-and-fourteen million trees in this state,

In eight to ten years,

We will have thirty-three percent.

So,

I called a bunch of volunteers,

About four-thousand-plus volunteers and said,

See we need to plant hundred-and-fourteen million trees.

Their eyeballs rolled.

They said,

Sadhguru,

Do you know how much is hundred-and-fourteen million?

How many zeros are there?

How do we do this?

Then I asked them a simple question,

What's your population?

That region has a population of sixty-two million.

I said,

If all of us plant one today,

Nurture it for one year and plant one more,

The number is done.

So,

Number is not the problem.

All of us consume,

But all of us are not willing to do the compensatory activity.

So,

Then we came up with a simple process that I have a certain way of doing things with people,

Push them to the extreme and then make them experience something.

So,

Then I push them like that and made them sit on a tree and breathe.

So,

In their experience,

They clearly saw,

What I exhale,

The tree inhales.

What the tree exhales,

I inhale.

Once they experience this,

Now you can't stop them from planting trees.

Just last week,

About eight-nine days ago,

We completed one-hundred-and-twelve million living trees in that region.

But now we took up one river,

Which has a catchment area or a river basin area of 83,

000 square kilometers.

So,

That takes 2.

42 billion trees to make the river flow once again.

I grew up on the banks of this river and what it was then,

Today what it is,

Is only forty percent left.

It's a perennial river,

Must have flown for millions of years,

But today it is only forty percent.

Along the way,

It is a rich forest and wildlife and everything.

Everything is dwindling,

Nobody counts that.

But I'm saying even for human consumption,

Only forty percent of the water is left.

So,

I said,

If you don't put back the vegetation,

The river will not flow because it's a tropical river.

The only source that we have is the monsoon rains.

The land has to retain the water and let it go slowly.

That is the only way it works.

These are not melting snow kind of rivers.

So,

This project is on right now and it's going on.

But as I said,

Hundred-and-twelve million trees is a drop in the ocean.

But people think it's fantastic.

That's what is tragic,

That we think little steps like this are fantastic.

No.

What we need is hundred-and-twelve billion trees on the planet.

Because right now,

Everybody is fashionable to talk about climate change and global warming.

Let's understand this much.

Let's say global warming.

I'll make you stand in hot sun in summer,

Stand there for two hours,

Then move under a tree.

Do you see there's a climate change?

Minimum three to four degrees difference right there,

One tree.

So,

This is what is needed.

We must understand life on this planet is sustained by a tremendous phenomena called as photosynthesis.

How much photosynthesis we had thousand years ago,

Today we have only fifteen percent of that.

So,

Oxygen levels are growing down.

Nobody talks about that.

Everybody talks about carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide.

Please talk about oxygen.

Hello?

Because that's what life thrives on here,

On this planet at least.

No,

Everybody is talking about carbon because there is money in it.

But oxygen,

I think all of you are oxygen breathing people.

I think so,

Looking at you.

So,

Only fifteen percent of the green cover is left.

That means fifteen percent of the photosynthesis is on,

Compared to what it was a thousand years ago.

Our populations have gone up significantly since then,

And how life will be on this planet in the next thirty to forty years is not very pretty.

It's not very pretty picture unless we turn it around.

Not that we cannot turn it around,

We can turn it around.

But everybody wants to do their own fanciful things,

It won't work.

We must understand the simple thing.

Every extra green leaf that you put on this planet,

From this moment onwards,

Is one small step towards climate mitigation,

Every extra leaf.

How many leaves will be put before we fall dead?

That's a question.

And I think that's powerful.

I think,

You know,

We're going for a trillion trees,

So I'm going to up your hundred million number.

I think you got to swing big on these problems that are really critical.

And one of the things I love about all of you is you take,

Help to take the complex and make it accessible,

Whether it's for educators,

Or for policymakers,

Or environmentalists,

Or for young people.

And I think that that's really important because we have to,

We have to take collective action.

And I'm mindful of,

So I just want to appreciate and thank all of you for that.

I think it's,

It's really critical.

And as we,

You know,

Kind of wrap this panel,

And here we are at the biggest AI conference in the country.

As we walk into this world of,

You know,

We're trying to simplify some very complex issue.

We have this massive technology that is headed our way and is definitely here,

But sort of coming in at ground,

Ground speed.

And I wonder,

You know,

How you,

What you're learning this week around AI,

How you're thinking about AI in your own work,

And how you,

You know,

Think that humans and machines can live together in the world,

And what we should be hopeful about.

A little bit about what you're worried about,

But what we can also be hopeful about.

Yes,

Well,

Okay,

You know,

AI we're already using in our work at Gombe and around Africa.

And we're using it for camera traps,

And we're using it in a way that images are captured on camera traps of shy chimpanzees or other animals.

They can actually be identified by AI,

So we can get a feeling of how many chimpanzees there are.

We can even name them,

Even though we've never seen them.

So very different from my studies,

Where I knew every chimpanzee like a family member.

But,

You know,

That's how things move on.

And we also use the kind of new AI that's coming in with satellite imagery and things like that.

So I can think of many,

Many ways AI can make the world a better place.

My worries,

Though,

Are if it gets in the wrong hands.

And there's one country,

I won't say its name,

But if somebody crosses the road at the wrong place,

By the time they get to the other side,

Their card has been ducked off the feet,

They're crossing the road in the wrong place.

And that's,

You know,

A dictatorship.

That's the scare.

And AI,

Like everything else,

Is a tool.

And the tool can be used in different ways.

A saw can be used to cut down dead wood and do something useful with it,

Or it can be used to cut down a living tree and thus make the carbon dioxide stored in the tree released into the atmosphere.

And so AI is like that.

And when it's in good hands,

Then fantastic.

But it's not always in good hands.

How do we,

Can AI answer how we keep it out of bad hands?

Right.

Let's ask.

Maybe a few words from you,

Sadhguru,

Then Matthew,

I'll give you the last word on it.

Thank you.

See,

What we are referring to as artificial intelligence is a tremendous empowerment.

We are on that threshold where human beings could launch themselves to become super human beings.

Well,

To be super with anything is only good when our,

Whatever our intent and identities are,

Are inclusive.

Between nations,

Between organizations,

Between political parties,

When we don't trust each other,

This could have lot of upheavals.

So inevitably that's going to be there.

But still,

You cannot stop a technology.

First of all,

What you see as a technology is human aspiration.

You cannot ever plug human aspirations.

If you plug that,

Then the very purpose of who we are and what we are will go away.

So how to have fulfillment of human aspirations without being destructive?

That's a question.

Well,

At the pace at which this particular technology will go,

The transition time that it allows people to catch up is so little.

So there will be collateral.

We should take care to ensure that collateral is minimized.

It cannot be avoided.

There will be collateral and pretty serious,

But we must minimize it with some compassionate heart and above all,

An inclusive approach towards everything.

Because if you're an ant,

You can crawl where you want.

If you become an elephant,

You can't walk wherever you want,

You'll crush too many things.

So right now,

We've become way bigger than elephants,

Way bigger.

Every human being,

The footprint is so big that if we step in wrong places,

Damage will happen.

And in terms of creating well-being,

Which is there in everybody's mind,

It is just the scale.

See,

Every human being is working for well-being.

Some people are thinking,

My own well-being,

All that matters.

They get married and children and stuff,

There's a me and my family well-being,

Me and my community,

Me and my nation.

We have come to a point of communication and vision and ability to see things clearly that we should not think on these terms in future.

Anything that we think has to be universal.

Otherwise,

We will be a very destructive force,

Because our capabilities are reaching that point.

Profound.

Thank you.

Yeah,

AI is going to have consequences both ways.

Yeah.

I think we have to admit that.

It's no way to keep it out of the tyrant's hands and the bad guy's hands.

Just hope it's in more good hands.

You know,

One of the particulars for me,

And I was talking about Greenlight Grand Initiative and working with Salesforce on this,

Is one of the main challenges is these 50-page grants that so many of these superintendents have to fill out to even have the potential to get awarded a grant.

They don't have the time or the expertise to do that.

We're working with Salesforce on a program that would fill out 90% of those grants,

90% of each 50-page grant,

Say 45 pages.

And then the superintendent would go in and fill out some details,

And that would be a grant that they would be able to fill out in and send in to the government agency so you could possibly get awarded.

So that's something specifically.

I'm excited about what Mark and Salesforce are doing with this idea of agent force.

I am excited about that.

I mean,

It's a human assistant.

Is it going to take a lot of human jobs?

It is.

It is.

Is it going to be able to work 24-7,

Though,

And not clock out 365 all around the world,

Be omnipresent in any language at any time?

Yes,

That's very exciting as far as productivity for sure.

I personally use it a little bit for creativity.

I summarize stories.

I tell stories and try to get images and art from it to give me some art from summarizing stories.

I am curious how many of us in creating this digital God,

If that's a fair word to use,

And I wouldn't use a capital G there,

But how many of us will be bowing to that instead of a spiritual God?

That concerns me a little bit,

That that's not really the right path to a higher ground.

But overall,

I am excited and optimistic.

These things have gone on.

I mean,

We've had industrial revolutions.

We've had big changes in society throughout time,

And I think we're on the hinge of one,

Obviously,

Right now.

Let's see what we create,

Because we are creating a vision of ourselves in that mirror.

We're going to be looking in a mirror when AI is realized,

And what we see may surprise us.

Hopefully,

It can surprise us in a wonderful way where we go,

I didn't know I looked so good.

It could also surprise us in a detrimental way where we go,

Oh,

I thought I looked better than this.

This aspect,

What Matthew pointed out,

It's an extension,

An expansion of who we are,

In a way.

In many ways,

The process of evolution,

One of the most beautiful things the evolutionary process has produced is the human mind.

But today,

Human mind is the basis of most of the misery that human beings go through.

It's what should have been a miracle has become a misery manufacturing process for themselves and also share it with others in so many different ways.

So,

Now this AI is going to be a super expansion of our own mind.

So,

We need to really watch this carefully as a part of this,

Because my work is with people and I see in how many ways human beings can produce misery for themselves.

Forget about others,

For themselves,

In how many ways.

Essentially,

Their intelligence turning against themselves,

That's what it means.

We can give it so many different names,

But essentially,

Our own intelligence is turning against us.

You can call this stress,

Tension,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Whatever.

But essentially,

Our own intelligence is poking us.

What is a miracle has become misery.

So,

Once again,

It's important that human beings learn how to make a miracle out of this.

As this transformative technologies are unfolding,

It's extremely important that we focus on individual human transformation.

If we don't do that,

What we create will turn against us,

Not because technology is bad,

Simply because we don't know how to handle it.

Yeah,

I agree.

Thank you so much.

I think,

You know,

We heard it was a tool and a mirror and an extension of us.

And,

You know,

I have a lot of hope that it will be beautiful.

I know there's a lot of people in the room working on incredibly powerful use cases for this technology,

And we have to walk into it with intention and inclusion and universality.

And I really appreciate you all being here today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Reviews

🌳 An Incredible listen. An invitation to be curious of broadening my wants to the universe and to be inspired to plant another tree… I appreciate hearing this 🙏

Very informative, inspiring and empowering.
🧘🏾‍♂️😌🙏🏿☯️💓☮️🙂👍🏿

My hero’s! Fabulous panel discussion! INSPIRED🥰🥰🥰! www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa www.compassioncourse.org

Thank you so very much for sharing this wonderful discussion ❤️🙏❤️🙏❤️