I have a unique take on the recent “AI Summit” at the University of Montana, which was reported to be a flop for young people in attendance, according to this Missoulian article:
Students at the University of Montana didn’t exactly seem excited about the promise of artificial intelligence at the Montana AI Summit this week.
Even the summit organizers acknowledged as much, posting a note to the event’s website on Thursday that admitted the summit’s panels and presentations weren’t relevant to everyone in the audience.
“Some sessions went over people’s heads. Others were too basic for people already building. A few sounded like a pitch when a small business owner needed something they could use Monday morning,” the note read. “We heard that. We’ll do better next time.”
After reading the article, then comparing the Missoulian’s report with what was reported to me by my source in attendance (who said similar things about the age gap and missing enthusiasm), I’ve got a theory about why a similar summit on campus in January had a better vibe:
That wariness stood in contrast to the mood at a similar panel in January, where students seemed more open to the new technology.
At this week’s summit, energy and excitement about the possibilities of AI were notably absent among students at the university-hosted event.
Could something be getting lost in translation between the rhetoric of technology being a useful tool, and the actual application of it in people’s lives? Maybe it has something to do with the apparent campaign to say DATA CENTER BAD? Is that what this comment from Jason Neiffer is implying by referencing “bullies”?
“I think right now there is a lot of bullying of people that use AI a lot, or there’s an immediate question of the output,” he said. “I think that should always be, especially if we’re talking about professional output, a judgment of the quality of something, and not the onus of which it was created.”
Jobs in education are tough, he said, and if there’s a place for educators to use these tool sets, “we absolutely should.”
Before I pivot to Buddhism in order to speculate why someone from a Buddhist retreat center would be attending an AI Summit, here’s how one of those young people framed the problematic “roll-out” of AI:
Grace Smith, who is also a Game Design graduate student, said the way AI has been rolled out, being integrated into many digital products automatically, has also impacted the public’s perception of AI as a tool.
“There’s almost a sour taste in young people’s mouths because of that — being forced to use something, versus being given a toolkit and the options, are way different,” she said.
Coercion isn’t a good strategy for integrating AI into every facet of our lives for the same reason coercion isn’t an effective means of forcing a religious conversion, but if someone WANTS to seek out new methods of achieving balance and peace in their lives, like using a meditation app, then why not empower them to do so?
There are now thousands of meditation apps available worldwide, the top 10 of which have been collectively downloaded more than 300 million times. What’s more, early work on these digital meditation platforms shows that even relatively brief usage can lead to benefits, from reduced depression, anxiety, and stress to improved insomnia symptoms.
“Meditation apps, such as Calm and Headspace, have been enormously popular in the commercial market,” said J. David Creswell, a health psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University and lead author of a review paper on meditation apps, published today in the journal American Psychologist. “What they’re doing now is not only engaging millions of users every day, but they’re also creating new scientific opportunities and challenges.”
The connection between technology, spirituality, and the billionaire class was mockingly framed in a movie called Mountainhead. In this “fictional” depiction of tech billionaires hanging out at an alpine estate in the mountains, Jason Schwartzman’s character is the poorest of the friends, and he annoys them by constantly pitching his meditation app.
Hmmm.
The poorest of them all is Soups (Jason Schwartzman), the owner of a meditation app. His net worth is a mere five hundred million, a soup-kitchen-level poverty in the realm of billionaires (thus the nickname, Soups). Jesse Armstrong has a talent for exploring the pecking order of the rich, and I was reminded of a Succession episode where a character described an income of five million dollars as a nightmare: “Can’t retire, not worth it to work.” Here Armstrong turbocharges the same sensibility applied to a different fractal space. The numbers are different, but the dynamic is the same. Soups can’t crack the b-nut — that is, raise a billion dollars for his app — and it gnaws him.
With all this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the Namchak Foundation, since someone from Namchak thought the AI Summit was a useful summit to attend for Buddhists teaching non-attachment to the material world.
Long time readers of this blog might recognize “Lama Tsomo” as Linda Pritzker, the Buddhist LARPer who helped inspire my decision to write a book I’m calling The Great JuBu Karma Con: How A Judaic/Buddhist Death Pact Took Root In Big Sky Country. Now, let’s take a look at how the person behind the Buddha Garden in Arlee, Montana, is pushing her new retreat center near Hot Springs.
If you ask ME, the Dalai Lama is always smiling because he gets CIA money and can therefore suck boy-tongue anytime he wants without consequence. That’s why the 990 form connection to the “Academy for Love of Learning” is so concerning to me.
The late Gloria Steinem connects to the Epstein network through her relationship with Stanley Pottinger, a relationship described in detail by Johnny Vedmore on the Monica Perez show.
It’s no secret Jeffrey Epstein had two major centers of operations (among others) in New Mexico and Manhattan, so isn’t it interesting that the Academy for Love of Learning is based in Santa Fe, with a “below market” apartment in Manhattan?
Coincidence?
It’s also no secret that the “Pritzker” name is ALL OVER the Epstein files, with deep ties to the Chicago/Democrat/Obama political machine, which heavily influences Democrats here in Montana, especially those residing in Missoula. Is this why Missoula became a safe space for an Epstein-adjacent, Berlin-born banker by the name of Klaus von Stutterheim?
The influence of Judaic thought, along with an occult branch of spiritualism known as “Theosophy”, on modern Buddhism is also important to consider, since it goes back to the religious showdown at the 1893 Chicago World Fair, which I cover in detail in my book. I also just recently made the connection between the President of that time period, Grover Cleveland, and Montana’s Russ Cleveland, who is currently pitching Initiative 194 to get “dark money” out of politics.
Interesting.
For additional context on the Epstein network’s appreciation for Buddhism and Tibet, here are some relevant files from my cursory DOJ search:
To wrap up today’s post, allow me to piggyback on the words of Chief AI Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer, Christopher Tarabochia, who is quoted in the Missoulian article saying this:
“At the end of the day, we’re on a learning journey together,” he said. “By no surprise, these things are called large language models. … Maybe we’re actually learning a new language.”
If we humans were simply “learning a new language” then nothing would be proprietary about how that language is interfacing with human minds and human-built systems, but that’s not the case. Instead, what I think we are seeing is a new form of eugenics intended to cull the human herd for the long-term benefit of a psychopath class actively seeking to become TRANShuman.
I hope the karma-peddling JuBu spiritualists prove me wrong.
In the spirit of enhancing this learning journey we’re all on, my final educational data point about Namchak is what the name means (hat-tip to the source who put this data point on my radar, because I think it’s significant):
If you know, you know.
Thanks for reading!