Congruence in Context
What does it mean for an agent — or a person — to be congruent in context?
9:00–11:00 AM MDT · Online, Zoom
A person enters a room and senses how to communicate. An AI agent enters its context and must do something analogous. We're increasingly surrounded by systems, and selves, that have to read a situation and respond well to it. What is the same in both circumstances, and what is different?
What can Vajrayana and AI research—two quite different traditions of enquiry—learn from putting that question to each other?
This is the first in a series of curated conversations bringing Vajrayana views and practice into dialogue with questions raised by increasingly capable AI. Rather than asking the intractable question of what it means to be conscious, we turn our attention to fertile ground in the space of interaction. How does any agent, human or artificial, come into congruence with its context?
A two-hour live conversation with a participatory public audience. Two guest speakers will each present their work and their particular interest in this intersection, then move into a moderated exchange.
This session will open the conversation. We're not expecting to resolve conflicting ideas or to reach conclusions. We will set the frame, surface the most generative questions, and establish the ground that future conversations will build on.
Vajrayana practitioner and cognitive scientist. Tim teaches and does research in linguistics, computer science, and cognitive science and is currently working on probabilistic systems for cognitive AI and the sciences of the mind. He is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at McGill University and holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Mila—Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute.
Vajrayana practitioner and computer scientist. Sasha is the author of the Psychonauts Diaries Substack, where he documents his meditation practice. He is a research scientist at Google DeepMind, where he worked on hierarchical reinforcement learning, multi-agent RL, agent-based modeling and social simulation. He is currently working on mapping the post-AGI future.
Vajrayana teacher. Author of Opening Awareness, a guide to the practice of spacious clarity. Charlie runs leadership training at the intersection of Vajrayana and developmental psychology. They train researchers and founders to discover how Vajrayana, rigorous thinking, and developmental change illuminate each other in practice.
Meditation coach and independent researcher whose work bridges contemplative traditions, cognitive science, and social design. Andrew guides leaders and groups to find spontaneous congruence, drawing on Vajrayana methods. He is currently exploring connections between contemplative practice and computational models of mind.
Charlie will introduce the purpose of these conversations. What might Vajrayana offer to AI research, and vice versa?
Tim and Sasha outline what draws each of them to the meeting of AI and Vajrayana and the work they're doing at this intersection.
A moderated exchange exploring where these perspectives may illuminate or complicate each other.
Exploratory questions for the audience, pursued in smaller groups of three or four.
Speakers share from their breakout. Audience invited to Q&A with the speakers.
The conversation will be recorded for the first two hours, then unrecorded after hours for those who would like to stay in the room. The recording will not be made public. Short clips may be shared later, and the recording may be made available to attendees of later conversations in the series.
Is this for you?
This is a working conversation, not an introduction. We won't be explaining Vajrayana from first principles, and we won't be debating whether AI is good or bad.
It will likely suit you if you work in or around AI and wonder what a mature contemplative tradition has to say about agents, context, and appropriate response. This initial conversation will open questions, laying the ground for future explorations. We're not expecting to solve problems or find resolutions.
It probably isn't for you if you're looking for a position statement on AI ethics, a guide to Buddhist practice, or an introduction to AI.