“Buddhist Robot” and Lydia Liu

At first mention of the Buddhist robot and the fact that the goal of Buddhism is to reach an enlightened state, I immediately thought back to Isaac Asimov’s “Robot Dreams” in which the robot seems to reach another level of consciousness within his dream. Is this the robot reaching this state of enlightenment? Is this the highest state of enlightenment that such a being can reach or can an AI reach an even higher level of consciousness through enlightenment? Then I thought back to Blade Runner and Roy Batty and how he seemed to also have reached another level of consciousness or enlightenment than most of the other replicants. He seemed to be aware of all things that were beautiful in our world, he showed the most powerful human emotion there is when he was with Pris; love. But it also seemed to beg the question, how enlightened can an AI be? Have there been any other examples of an AI that I missed that has reached an even higher level of consciousness? of enlightenment in relation to Buddha? And does the definition of “the enlightened state” change for an AI and is different than the enlightened state for a human?

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