BAPS monk Brahmavihari Swami on 23 October 2026 called artificial intelligence the most transformative invention in human history — one that, unlike any technology before it, will alter humanity not just externally but from within. Speaking at the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi during a session titled Beyond Intelligence: AI, Faith and the Meaning of Being Human, the monk argued that AI's consequences would reshape how people think, behave, and form relationships.

AI Compared to Fire, the Wheel and the Light Bulb

Brahmavihari Swami drew a sharp distinction between artificial intelligence and the landmark inventions of earlier civilisations. "While fire transformed human life, the light bulb changed how people experienced the night and the wheel made movement faster, AI is different," he said. He described AI as "the biggest breakthrough humanity has seen," but stressed that its uniqueness lay in its inward reach: "AI is the only invention that is going to change things within us."

The comparison is more than rhetorical. Each of the inventions he cited — fire, the wheel, the light bulb — modified the physical world around human beings. AI, he argued, targets cognition, values and consciousness themselves.

The Autonomy Question: When AI Reproduces Itself

The monk raised specific concerns about the growing autonomy of AI systems, particularly so-called AI agents — systems capable of executing complex tasks with minimal human oversight. He warned that the technology may be entering a phase in which AI evolves and replicates through increasingly self-directed processes.

"Till now, washing machines did not reproduce smaller washing machines. AI is reproducing on its own, it has agents," he said — a vivid articulation of the qualitative shift that autonomous AI represents. This trajectory, he cautioned, raises fundamental questions about the future balance of authority between humans and machines.

The Spiritual Stakes: Consciousness, Values and the Soul

While acknowledging the technology's transformative potential, Brahmavihari Swami warned that AI's expanding influence must not erode human consciousness or spiritual well-being. "If you allow it to hijack your mind, if it costs your soul, we have something to worry," he said.

This concern places the monk in a growing global conversation about AI ethics — one that has typically been framed in secular terms around bias, labour displacement and misinformation, but which religious thinkers are increasingly approaching through the lens of human identity and moral agency.

Faith, Not Fear: The Monk's Call for Balanced Oversight

Rather than advocating withdrawal from AI or uncritical adoption, Brahmavihari Swami called for a dual approach: human values combined with concrete regulatory safeguards. "If it's uncertainty and you face it with fear, you're more likely to make the wrong choices. And if you face something with faith, you are likely to make the right choices in this situation when it's really out of our control… I think the world has to face it with faith. But at the same time, it doesn't mean that we cannot have the red lights that control it. So it's both. Understand the fear but face it with faith," he said.

His remarks align with a broader push by ethicists, technologists and spiritual leaders for international AI governance frameworks — a discussion that gained momentum through the G20 AI principles and ongoing debates at the United Nations. Notably, the intervention of a prominent religious voice at a mainstream media summit signals how AI anxiety has moved well beyond tech circles into questions of cultural and spiritual identity.

What This Signals for the AI Debate

As AI-generated content, autonomous agents and machine-learning systems become embedded in daily life, conversations about inner human experience — memory, creativity, empathy, spiritual practice — are increasingly entering the mainstream policy discourse. Brahmavihari Swami's address at the NDTV World Summit is one indicator of that shift. The challenge ahead, as he framed it, is to build the 'red lights' of governance without surrendering the human qualities that make such governance meaningful in the first place.