Shai Tubali

University of Leeds

Will Humans Ever Become Conscious? Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Thought About AI as a Fresh Perspective on Current Debates

22 April 2025, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Discussions about AI often center on whether machines can think, understand, or even become conscious. However, in our fascination with AI’s capabilities, we overlook a more pressing question: What happens to human consciousness when machines replicate and outperform our cognitive functions? Drawing on Jiddu Krishnamurti’s radical insights, this talk shifts the debate from AI’s potential consciousness to the mechanization of human thought. The Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher saw AI not as an existential threat but as a mirror reflecting our own conditioned, repetitive mental patterns. If thinking is merely an accumulation of experience, memory, and knowledge, then AI’s rapid processing power forces us to ask: Is our intelligence truly intelligent, or is it merely mechanical? Krishnamurti’s challenge is not to fear AI’s progress but to recognize the urgency of cultivating a non-mechanical mind—one that transcends habitual thought and awakens a deeper intelligence. This talk explores how AI compels us to reconsider the nature of human awareness and whether we can move beyond programmed cognition to discover a consciousness that no machine could ever replicate. Instead of asking whether AI will ever become conscious, we must ask: Will we?