• Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    Robots, the Internet, and Humanity

    Robots Among Us Your life might not be populated with whirring and clicking creatures motoring around your house, but all of us depend on artificial intelligence in some way, even if only tangentially. Manufacturing plants and hospitals use robotic machines. Many of us interact with Siri or Alexa. Apps manage our finances and our entertainment. If you use those self-checkout lanes at the supermarket, you’re being helped by a computer that is, essentially, a stationary robot. In the technological and business world, there’s a lot of excitement about the possibilities. Sarwant Singh expressed the hope that we’ll soon be able to “create a new breed of mobile robots that act…

  • Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    The Love that Saves

    Does Love Save? During a recent sharing circle, the question of love came up. What kind of love can save the world, we wondered, and how we might learn to love in that way? Saving the world is a sweet idea. I’ve written about how joy could save the world, so why not love? Yet to think we can save an entire planet is also absurd, at least if by saving we mean that one day there will be peace and cooperation everywhere, respect, and generosity, and a deep, abiding kindness. Such values exist in pockets in every country and in every village, but so does animosity. All these and more are part…