@inproceedings{f346546f644644e0aee27001740e5826,
title = "Contemplative Superalignment",
abstract = "As artificial intelligence (AI) improves, current alignment strategies may falter in the face of unpredictable self-improvement and the sheer complexity of AI. Rather than trying to control behavior, we show how four principles from contemplative traditions can help intrinsically align (super) intelligence. First, mindfulness enables self-monitoring and recalibration of emergent subgoals. Second, emptiness forestalls dogmatic goal fixation and relaxes rigid priors. Third, non-duality dissolves adversarial self–other boundaries. Fourth, boundless care motivates the universal reduction of suffering. We find that prompting AI to reflect on these principles improves performance on the AILuminate Benchmark (d = .96) and boosts cooperation and joint-reward on the Iterated Prisoner{\textquoteright}s Dilemma task (d = 7 +). We also show how active inference offers parameters for integrating contemplative wisdom deeper into the architecture and world models of AI. This interdisciplinary approach offers a resilient alternative to brittle control schemes and may be the first empirical test of {\textquoteleft}ancient wisdom{\textquoteright}.",
keywords = "Alignment, Artificial Intelligence, Buddhism, Compassion, Contemplative Science, Large Language Models, Machine Learning, Meditation, Mindfulness, Neural Networks, Neurophenomenology, Non-duality",
author = "Laukkonen, \{Ruben E.\} and Fionn Inglis and Shamil Chandaria and Lars Sandved-Smith and Edmundo Lopez-Sola and Jakob Hohwy and Jonathan Gold and Adam Elwood",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.; 18th International Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, AGI 2025 ; Conference date: 10-08-2025 Through 13-08-2025",
year = "2026",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-032-00686-8\_31",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9783032006851",
series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science",
publisher = "Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH",
pages = "346--361",
editor = "Matthew Ikl{\'e} and Anton Kolonin and Michael Bennett",
booktitle = "Artificial General Intelligence - 18th International Conference, AGI 2025, Proceedings",
address = "Germany",
}