Can Thinking About AI Help Us Understand Our Selves?

Can Thinking About AI Help Us Understand Our Selves? A live dialogue on Buddhism, AI and the nature of mind with Geshe Tenzin Namdak and Professor Murray Shanahan, moderated by Chris Scammell Saturday 20 June 2026 | 6.30pm–8.00pm BST Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London and online When you chat with an AI, it can feel like you’re speaking with another being. But does that hold up? Does the system understand you? Does it think? Could it ever be conscious – and are those even the right questions to ask? Buddhist and Western philosophers have been working on the nature of mind and consciousness for thousands of years. This evening brings two of those traditions into direct conversation. Geshe Tenzin Namdak, Jamyang’s resident teacher, and Professor Murray Shanahan, Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind, will sit down with Chris Scammell of the Buddhism & AI Initiative, who moderates the dialogue. Together they will ask what these traditions have to offer as we try to understand this new technology — and whether thinking carefully about AI can change how we understand ourselves. The conversationExpect a stimulating dialogue covering topics such as, consciousness and its absence, what “mind” means outside a body, the Madhyamaka view of how things exist, and Murray Shanahan’s recent argument that thinking through disembodied AI systems leads toward something resembling emptiness in the Buddhist sense. There will be time for questions from the room and from online attendees. The speakersGeshe Tenzin Namdak is Jamyang’s resident teacher. Originally trained as a hydrologist in the Netherlands, he was ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and went on to become the first Westerner to complete the full twenty-year Geshe degree at Sera Jey Monastic University, followed by the one-year Vajrayana programme at Gyume Tantric College. He is currently pursuing doctoral research at Oxford on the Eight Difficult Points of Prāsaṅgika in the Gelug tradition, and is a regular voice at Science & Wisdom LIVE. Professor Murray Shanahan is Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind and Emeritus Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Imperial College London. His work spans AI, computational neuroscience and philosophy of mind, with a long engagement with Buddhist thought. He is the author of Embodiment and the Inner Life (Oxford, 2010) and The Technological Singularity (MIT, 2015), and his recent paper Palatable Conceptions of Disembodied Being (2025) argues that AI can help loosen our dualistic intuitions about selfhood. He was scientific advisor to Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina. Chris Scammell (moderator) is co-founder of the Buddhism & AI Initiative, which brings Buddhist practitioners, technologists and contemplative researchers into conversation on the future of AI. Previously Chief Operating Officer of the AI safety company Conjecture, he holds a degree in Computer Science, Anthropology and Philosophy from Colby College and studied with the Carleton-Antioch Buddhist Studies Programme in Bodh Gaya. He attended the 2025 Mind & Life Dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on minds, AI and ethics. DetailsDate: Saturday 20 June 2026 Time: 6.30pm–8.00pm BST Format: Hybrid — join us in person in Kennington, or online via livestream Venue: Jamyang Buddhist Centre, 43 Renfrew Road, London SE11 4NA Online: Livestream link sent to ticket holders ahead of the event via email Booking: Tickets for this event are priced at £15