Your essay has pierced me profoundly. I am weeping and can barely see to write.
Profundity, to use your elegant frame, is resonance with truth, beauty, and goodness at all scales through the alignment of will and love. This analysis is extremely elegant in its simplicity—and there is nothing simple about simplicity. To quote Epictetus "Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants". From your lens, suffering is misalignment of will and love with the unfolding of truth beauty and goodness. The suffering amplifies when we are not aware of our true desires—this ignorance and fear causes our actions to create buffers against suffering. Those buffers are ego (information buffer) and possessions (material buffer). The buffer itself creates a transmission delay (ignorance) between the signals of truth beauty and goodness that are unfolding realtime, and our ability to perceive and participate in them. The signifiers become detached from the signified —we run mental simulations by ruminating on the past to fret about the future, and react to the simulations rather than being present to the realtime signals. The transmission delay amplifies itself through a bullwhip effect of increasing overreaction amplitude-more ego, more status, more performance more conflict more competition, more stuff, more suffering more ignorance. Contemplation to right size our buffers to reduce the gap between will and love and thereby unwind them so we can be present to and participate in the flow of truth beauty and goodness is very powerful wisdom.
Learning through following our intrinsic curiosity and wonder seems to be the door to is this process of unwinding the buffer to resonate with truth beauty and goodness.
On a strange synchronistic note my closest friend is a gifted educator who excels at igniting the joy and wonder of learning in his students, and he seems to learn at least as much from his students as they do from him in an accelerating positive feedback loop. He is a literature teacher and is constantly learning and bringing what has inspired him into his classroom, (and encouraging his students to do the same) and offering his students a chance to consider how it might relate to them personally and to respond to it creatively through words and other art forms as they feel fit. He told me only yesterday that he has boiled this down to three questions that he invites the students to ponder individually and share as a group:
How is this true?
How is this beautiful?
How can this help me lead a good life?
He said the answers students offer often bring everyone to tears. Perhaps these tears are the joy of feeling will align with love?
Thank you for all the wonderful work you are sharing here.
No hyperbole, this is one of the best substack posts I’ve ever read. You captured so eloquently so many of my own thoughts around AI, and so many more I never could have been able to articulate.
This essay is bound to go viral. I did a double take on seeing writing of this quality with such little engagement. For now.
Reminds me that sometimes when you have too much of something you lose interest in it. The mind is a flowing stream. If you let it change directions since you can now with AI it will cause a loss of belonging.
"The second gap is between what we think we want and what we actually want. My teacher Rob Burbea would often ask a question that seemed almost too simple: Why do you want what you want? Sit with it, and it becomes a trapdoor. You want wealth. Why? Because you want security. Why? Because you want to feel safe. Why? Because somewhere very deep, you want to rest in something you can trust completely. You want to be held by something that won’t let you fall."
Love you bringing in Rob Burbea, a legend. Wisdom is the piece that is so easy to overlook. And so important to NOT overlook. Thanks for weaving this all together so thoughtfully Daneil!
Some great insights into the way working with ai accelerates samsaric loops. I find if I keep myself in the loop consciously using agents as helpers then I can stay reasonably aware of how it pulls my mind into fast result-seeking loops. Times I've let the agent run things lead me into quasi-addictive spaces reminiscent of cocaine use or all-night sessions with early console games which aren't good for me or the people around me.
I didn't really go along with the pivot to the necessity for a spiritual resolution, or the suggestion that the similar underlying process is related to clarifying desire. 'Purpose' lands better for me. Desire suggests something we might consciously want, and in truth very few people really want spiritual realisation and are willing to do the work to get there. Desires seem interchangeable, but when there is purpose one discovers there is nothing else to do but shed the cycles of samsara at every level we encounter them.
Nevertheless I really appreciate your writing over recent years, you always make me reflect.
Thank you for your article. I’m new to Substack and have been looking for more thoughtful pieces on AI. I’ve been using it not just for work and my writing, but to unpack, explore and challenge my own thoughts. My view is that AI is a mirror. At speed and scale, it will reveal what you are. Your piece gives me hope that there are people like myself, who see this is a tool for expansion, not for destruction.
This piece lands because it flips the usual framing. We talk endlessly about “AI alignment,” but the deeper problem is that humans are poorly aligned with each other and even with themselves, including values conflict, incentives conflict, identities conflict, and our nervous systems often choose safety and belonging over truth.
A few points I kept thinking about while reading:
1. Misalignment is often an incentive story masquerading as a morals story. People can sincerely endorse “health, truth, fairness” while their institutions reward speed, outrage, status, or quarterly targets. Over time, the incentive wins and everyone rationalizes after the fact.
2. The nervous system is part of governance. Under threat (social, financial, existential), cognition narrows. We become more certain, more tribal, more punitive, less curious. So “alignment” can’t be purely philosophical; it has to include conditions that make calm thinking possible.
3. Shared reality needs maintenance. We treat “truth” like a static object, but in practice it’s a social process: norms for evidence, humility, correction, and good-faith interpretation. When those norms erode, everyone ends up living in incompatible worlds.
What I appreciated most is that you don’t end in cynicism. You’re basically arguing for alignment as a practiced skill: better incentives, clearer accountability, more honesty about tradeoffs, and communities that reward integrity over performance.
This wonderfully written article shows how captivating psychosis can be. One can dig at and extract truth all while under the psychosis of believing in god / spiritual forces.
«The frantic energy feels less like genuine excitement and more like a nervous system in overdrive» This is so well put and so recognrizable. When using AI this way, at least for me, it leaves a bad aftertaste. Thank you for this post, hope it reaches many. 🙏🏻
this was so good and crystal clear. the first ai article i've read in a while that left me feeling more clear minded, hopeful, and uplifted. one of your best, imo. thank you.
Your essay has pierced me profoundly. I am weeping and can barely see to write.
Profundity, to use your elegant frame, is resonance with truth, beauty, and goodness at all scales through the alignment of will and love. This analysis is extremely elegant in its simplicity—and there is nothing simple about simplicity. To quote Epictetus "Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants". From your lens, suffering is misalignment of will and love with the unfolding of truth beauty and goodness. The suffering amplifies when we are not aware of our true desires—this ignorance and fear causes our actions to create buffers against suffering. Those buffers are ego (information buffer) and possessions (material buffer). The buffer itself creates a transmission delay (ignorance) between the signals of truth beauty and goodness that are unfolding realtime, and our ability to perceive and participate in them. The signifiers become detached from the signified —we run mental simulations by ruminating on the past to fret about the future, and react to the simulations rather than being present to the realtime signals. The transmission delay amplifies itself through a bullwhip effect of increasing overreaction amplitude-more ego, more status, more performance more conflict more competition, more stuff, more suffering more ignorance. Contemplation to right size our buffers to reduce the gap between will and love and thereby unwind them so we can be present to and participate in the flow of truth beauty and goodness is very powerful wisdom.
Learning through following our intrinsic curiosity and wonder seems to be the door to is this process of unwinding the buffer to resonate with truth beauty and goodness.
On a strange synchronistic note my closest friend is a gifted educator who excels at igniting the joy and wonder of learning in his students, and he seems to learn at least as much from his students as they do from him in an accelerating positive feedback loop. He is a literature teacher and is constantly learning and bringing what has inspired him into his classroom, (and encouraging his students to do the same) and offering his students a chance to consider how it might relate to them personally and to respond to it creatively through words and other art forms as they feel fit. He told me only yesterday that he has boiled this down to three questions that he invites the students to ponder individually and share as a group:
How is this true?
How is this beautiful?
How can this help me lead a good life?
He said the answers students offer often bring everyone to tears. Perhaps these tears are the joy of feeling will align with love?
Thank you for all the wonderful work you are sharing here.
No hyperbole, this is one of the best substack posts I’ve ever read. You captured so eloquently so many of my own thoughts around AI, and so many more I never could have been able to articulate.
This essay is bound to go viral. I did a double take on seeing writing of this quality with such little engagement. For now.
You really must write a book Daniel. Your voice goes to the heart of what’s needed in these times. 🙏☀️
Excellent artcle daniel. Very well captured.
Reminds me that sometimes when you have too much of something you lose interest in it. The mind is a flowing stream. If you let it change directions since you can now with AI it will cause a loss of belonging.
Great post! I had some related thoughts about AI & desire here https://open.substack.com/pub/burhanbaki/p/3-trillion-question-what-happens
"The second gap is between what we think we want and what we actually want. My teacher Rob Burbea would often ask a question that seemed almost too simple: Why do you want what you want? Sit with it, and it becomes a trapdoor. You want wealth. Why? Because you want security. Why? Because you want to feel safe. Why? Because somewhere very deep, you want to rest in something you can trust completely. You want to be held by something that won’t let you fall."
Love you bringing in Rob Burbea, a legend. Wisdom is the piece that is so easy to overlook. And so important to NOT overlook. Thanks for weaving this all together so thoughtfully Daneil!
Some great insights into the way working with ai accelerates samsaric loops. I find if I keep myself in the loop consciously using agents as helpers then I can stay reasonably aware of how it pulls my mind into fast result-seeking loops. Times I've let the agent run things lead me into quasi-addictive spaces reminiscent of cocaine use or all-night sessions with early console games which aren't good for me or the people around me.
I didn't really go along with the pivot to the necessity for a spiritual resolution, or the suggestion that the similar underlying process is related to clarifying desire. 'Purpose' lands better for me. Desire suggests something we might consciously want, and in truth very few people really want spiritual realisation and are willing to do the work to get there. Desires seem interchangeable, but when there is purpose one discovers there is nothing else to do but shed the cycles of samsara at every level we encounter them.
Nevertheless I really appreciate your writing over recent years, you always make me reflect.
You have found yet another way to put my own journey into words…
“Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”
Thank you for your article. I’m new to Substack and have been looking for more thoughtful pieces on AI. I’ve been using it not just for work and my writing, but to unpack, explore and challenge my own thoughts. My view is that AI is a mirror. At speed and scale, it will reveal what you are. Your piece gives me hope that there are people like myself, who see this is a tool for expansion, not for destruction.
This piece lands because it flips the usual framing. We talk endlessly about “AI alignment,” but the deeper problem is that humans are poorly aligned with each other and even with themselves, including values conflict, incentives conflict, identities conflict, and our nervous systems often choose safety and belonging over truth.
A few points I kept thinking about while reading:
1. Misalignment is often an incentive story masquerading as a morals story. People can sincerely endorse “health, truth, fairness” while their institutions reward speed, outrage, status, or quarterly targets. Over time, the incentive wins and everyone rationalizes after the fact.
2. The nervous system is part of governance. Under threat (social, financial, existential), cognition narrows. We become more certain, more tribal, more punitive, less curious. So “alignment” can’t be purely philosophical; it has to include conditions that make calm thinking possible.
3. Shared reality needs maintenance. We treat “truth” like a static object, but in practice it’s a social process: norms for evidence, humility, correction, and good-faith interpretation. When those norms erode, everyone ends up living in incompatible worlds.
What I appreciated most is that you don’t end in cynicism. You’re basically arguing for alignment as a practiced skill: better incentives, clearer accountability, more honesty about tradeoffs, and communities that reward integrity over performance.
This wonderfully written article shows how captivating psychosis can be. One can dig at and extract truth all while under the psychosis of believing in god / spiritual forces.
«The frantic energy feels less like genuine excitement and more like a nervous system in overdrive» This is so well put and so recognrizable. When using AI this way, at least for me, it leaves a bad aftertaste. Thank you for this post, hope it reaches many. 🙏🏻
This really touched me! Thank you!
Brilliant and inspiring, Daniel! Thank you. I so appreciate your articulation. It lands in my body with a coherent YES.
This was a great read Daniel. Thanks for writing it.
this was so good and crystal clear. the first ai article i've read in a while that left me feeling more clear minded, hopeful, and uplifted. one of your best, imo. thank you.