<center><b> Introduction </b></center><p>
WORDS SUCH AS computer, robot, and artificial intelligence were not in vogue when Krishnamurti spoke in the late '50s and early '60s about man's technological progress; instead, he used words such as electronic brains, cybernetics, machines, and mechanical intelligence. But the prophetic vision of the sage saw, much ahead of time, the challenges that humanity is facing today from its own creations. Three months before his passing away in 1986, he said:<P>
Two months ago three very clever people, scientists, came, and we talked. They are trying to find out artificial intelligence. If they can find that, you are all gone. Your knowledge, your Vedas, Upanishads, Gita-everything is gone. Because the machine can repeat them much better than you and I can ever do. It will invent theories, it will create gods, it will bring about a new kind of knowledge. It will. They are doing it now.<P>
Questioner: Do you think it will be there in the next century?<P>
K: Oh yes. It will be there at the end of this. Rajghat, 9 November 1985, The Last Talks.<P>
Similar compelling statements he made over the decades and their relevance in this age of artificial intelligence are to be found in a digital booklet The Future of Humanity in the Age of AI, a compilation of excerpts from his talks and writing and dialogues between the years 1968 and 1985.<P>
In the present compilation, in eight small group discussions he held in India between 1972 and 1983, Krishnamurti elaborates on the various types of this so-called scientific progress, such as the growth of computers and super-computers, robots, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, biochemical engineering, chemicals, drugs, cloning, and so on. He regards all these as a threat to human survival and sanity, a threat equal to, if not more than, that from the next world war or an atomic explosion. In a discussion in this book, he says:<P>
I don't think we understand the depth of what is happening. We are arguing: 'Can it happen'? It is going to happen. Take it for granted. A multi-millionaire wanted himself reproduced before dying, and they are going to do it. Right? Then what are we? What is a human being then? The machines are going to take over-machines, chemicals-I am using the word computer to include all those. When the computer is going to take us over completely, and we are not exercising our brains and therefore deteriorating, physically deteriorating, how shall we prevent all this? I don't know if you follow what I mean. Discussion in Rishi Valley, 4 December 1980.<P>
How the timeless vision of a seer meets a topical issue is to be found in this new book that contains eight hitherto-unpublished discussions.<P>
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