The Xeno Sutra: Can Meaning and Value be Ascribed to an AI-Generated "Sacred" Text?

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Shanahan, Murray, Das, Tara, Thurman, Robert
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Shanahan, Murray
Das, Tara
Thurman, Robert
author_facet Shanahan, Murray
Das, Tara
Thurman, Robert
contents This paper presents a case study in the use of a large language model to generate a fictional Buddhist "sutra"', and offers a detailed analysis of the resulting text from a philosophical and literary point of view. The conceptual subtlety, rich imagery, and density of allusion found in the text make it hard to causally dismiss on account of its mechanistic origin. This raises questions about how we, as a society, should come to terms with the potentially unsettling possibility of a technology that encroaches on human meaning-making. We suggest that Buddhist philosophy, by its very nature, is well placed to adapt.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_20525
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Xeno Sutra: Can Meaning and Value be Ascribed to an AI-Generated "Sacred" Text?
Shanahan, Murray
Das, Tara
Thurman, Robert
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
This paper presents a case study in the use of a large language model to generate a fictional Buddhist "sutra"', and offers a detailed analysis of the resulting text from a philosophical and literary point of view. The conceptual subtlety, rich imagery, and density of allusion found in the text make it hard to causally dismiss on account of its mechanistic origin. This raises questions about how we, as a society, should come to terms with the potentially unsettling possibility of a technology that encroaches on human meaning-making. We suggest that Buddhist philosophy, by its very nature, is well placed to adapt.
title The Xeno Sutra: Can Meaning and Value be Ascribed to an AI-Generated "Sacred" Text?
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20525