Karuna Karuna: Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi on Why Compassion Must Be Designed Into AI

00:00:31 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It's always, of course, a great honor to have a Nobel Prize–winning guest on our show. We've had several of them in the past. My old friend, Maria Ressa, has been on the show many times. Of course, she won the Peace Prize, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, the Philippines-based social media activist. We also had recently Simon Johnson on the show, the MIT economist. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2024. And recently, we also had Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI on the show. He won the physics prize, the Nobel Prize in physics in 2024. And we have, I'm thrilled to announce another Nobel Prize winner. Kailash Satyarthi won the peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, and he's currently on a tour of the United States focusing on the impact of new technology, AI in particular, on his big project, his great passion, compassion. He's joining us from Minneapolis today. Kailash, a real honor to have you on the show.

00:01:49 Kailash Satyarthi: Thank you so much.

00:01:52 Andrew Keen: What have you been doing since you won the Nobel Prize? You— You've been in the spotlight for eleven years. My sense is in some ways, it was the beginning rather than the end of your journey.

00:02:10 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, the launch of movement for globalizing compassion is definitely a new addition in my journey, but I always felt and said that my inner drive has always been compassion. And, now we are working on building compassionate leadership in, technology, compassionate leadership in, governance, global governance, academia, health sector, judiciary, businesses, and so on. So that is my new movement.

00:02:52 Andrew Keen: Yeah. Your movement is the globalization of compassion, which I think would be hard to argue with. When, Geoffrey Hinton was on the show last year, he talked about his fear of AI suggesting that we need to install different kinds of values in the technology. He particularly talked at the time, it was quite controversial, about, female values. Is that what you're arguing for? You've spent the last few days in Silicon Valley. You've spoken at a number of tech events. Are you trying to build compassion into AI? Do you see that as an interesting opportunity in your globalization of compassion?

00:03:41 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, machines, including codes and algorithms, cannot feel. They cannot be compassionate. But what is possible and very much possible is that the people who build those machines, they could be compassionate and they can enlarge the circle of their compassion. That is very much possible. Secondly, what I have been saying for quite some time that ideally, the machine should be neutral, but now technology and algorithms are not neutral. They are made by those people who have their own biases, own apprehensions, own flaws and weaknesses, own mindset, and those engineers, those code writers [unclear], those developers have their own, trust, and that flows with the machine. And that is the area where we have to see that how we can make a difference. And the difference is very much possible when we make compassion as the design principle, and that should flow outrightly in the development and deployment. But, Andrew, let me also make it clear that when I say compassion, I'm not talking about kindness, empathy, mercy, pity, or any other kind of kind emotion, though they are good human traits. But around my entire movement for globalizing compassion, including in AI, is little bit evolved or I would say I re— I am trying to redefine or rearticulate the whole notion of compassion, as an engineer, as a human right activist in all my life. And for me, compassion is a disruptive, dynamic, and transformative force. And that force is born from feeling the problems of others as your own that drives to take mindful action in solving those problems. So in short, we say that compassion is mindful and pragmatic problem solving. And that idea of mindful problem solving makes us more morally responsible, morally accountable. Our moral compass remain always with us. And that's why when I talk of compassionate AI, it means that moral principle or that, power of mindful problem solving should be the designing principle at the foundation stage.

00:06:28 Andrew Keen: Yeah. And I know you've spent a lifetime defining, writing about, and rewriting about compassion. Your book, Karuna, The Power of Compassion, came out this year. So you're all too familiar with that. I, as certainly non-expert in any way on compassion, looked it up on Gemini, on Wikipedia. Perhaps you talked about this dynamic force, and you've given it so much thought, Kailash. Are you politicizing the idea of compassion or depoliticizing it? How does it work with politics?

00:07:08 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, I am humanizing it because compassion is something which we are all born with. It is biological. It is neurological. So it is the core of humanity, and, my effort is to humanize it. It is not possible to depoliticize anything because everything now is politicized. And the politics, reflects in many ways, several ways. One is definitely power, another one is profit and, control and authority, influence. All these things are no reflections of politics and which we all know, for the beginning of the idea of politics. So if we have to really, humanize politics, then I would say that we have to bring compassion in politics also. And that is one of my areas of work, to talk about the compassionate politics and compassionate governance.

00:08:17 Andrew Keen: Where is your idea intellectually, Kailash, of compassion inherited from? Gandhi, of course, comes to mind in the Indian tradition. You're based in Delhi. Is there an intellectual tradition that you borrow from and develop in terms of making the power of compassion so central in your message in terms of globalizing compassion?

00:08:44 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, Andrew, I, reflected much when, the— When I brought this idea of globalizing compassion in my Nobel acceptance speech. Frankly speaking, I did not go into deep the intellectual part of it because, I thought that my own drive, my own, oxygen for my own— The survival of all my efforts and struggle was not political ideology, neither was any religious, or faith drive. It was something different. And I found the word compassion close to my heart, though it was very difficult because people for centuries think that compassion is a great human trait or it's a— It's an emotion, it's a feeling, et cetera. But I brought this, different, definition that compassion is a force, not just emotion. Of course, it is born from feeling and the feeling is innate. So compassion is also biological and innate. Now, when we have to develop it in different way, that means, world is facing multiple crisis and problems. We have never been so wealthier, so well informed, so fast as we are today. And despite that, world has never been so much fragmented, broken, uncertain, and living in different kind of, pressures and, competing in conflict interests. So, what is the answer? Where is the answer? In my own work in the fight against child slavery and child labor, we see that, still millions of children are enslaved, million of children are sold and bought like animals, millions of children, tens of millions of children are living, rather hundreds of millions of children are living in war zones and all these things. So I realized that there is serious gap of moral responsibility towards each other and moral accountability. And it begins with not seriously taking the cognizance of others' problem and not feeling others' problem as our own, which is the essence of humanity. If we are not able to connect with each other and solve each other's problems, we cannot solve the global problems. That sense should be universalized. Responsibility should be, you know, universalized, and that is not possible without globalizing compassion. So all these ideas came to me, and I arrived to that conclusion, intellectually also that all the social reform or social transformation movements, all the religions and all the revolutions in the world were born out of the spark of compassion when someone personally or as a group have acknowledged the mass suffering around him or her or they, felt it as deeply as it is their own suffering, own problems, and they tried to come out with some solutions and they did their best. And so religions and revolutions were born. Genesis is like that. It cannot be something which came from outside. It was something much more, personal and very much inner power. So I am trying to translate that power into action. And then I realized that if we have to define compassion, there are four things have to be taken into account. There are four, components of compassion. One is awareness or taking cognizance surrounding you. Secondly, the ability to connect with the people who are suffering and the problems. Thirdly, the feeling should be honest and deep intense feeling for them, but it should not stop here because when you are aware and mindful about those feelings and problems, then the fourth stage is to take action to solve those problems. So these things, awareness, connectedness, feeling, and action make compassion. And I have worked quite a lot on it.

00:13:26 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I'm intrigued that you brought up Genesis. Of course, the theological dimension of all this is self-evident. Given your current focus on AI and compassion, the Pope has also been quite outspoken in terms of AI. I'm not sure how much he's used the word compassion. But do you see the kind of conversation that you're trying to stimulate as being a broad theological one triggered by people like yourself and the Pope?

00:14:01 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, I fully agree, with Pope on bringing, the human part in technology and particularly in artificial intelligence. These are very, very essential, messages from him and also from some other people. People are talking of responsible AI or ethical AI and moralistic AI, et cetera, et cetera. But morality, ethics, even the theological and religious sermons come from outside. I'm not, proposing that we need to learn all those things from outside. The most important power within us is consciousness and compassion. They are like twin sisters. So why can't we ignite compassion so that the responsibility and ethics and morality should not be borrowed from outside, from any religion, but, we have to ignite our inner power of compassion and that is very much possible because it is very much neurological. It's biological. So that is a little bit different approach because morality, ethics, religions, they and their message keep on changing. Their priorities keep on changing. And the challenges in the world, are still existing despite so many temples and mosques and churches and synagogues and all kind of religious, places and holy, men and women. That is great. So they are reminding us the essence and importance and necessity of humanity, but how to ignite that essence that cannot be possible without the inner power of compassion.

00:15:48 Andrew Keen: Kailash, as I said at the beginning, you've just done some speeches in Silicon Valley. You're in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Menlo Park, of all places. There'll be some people in Silicon Valley listening to this and saying, yeah. We get it. We've got compassion. When you listen to somebody like Sam Altman or Dario Amodei, they're both saying the same thing that we need— I don't know if they use the word compassion, but we need to remind ourselves of our humanity as we invent this new technology. What's your sense as an outsider, as someone who's just spent a few days in Silicon Valley, about the humanist movement, so to speak, in Silicon Valley. Not everyone embraces that term. But do you have confidence in the big tech companies and the AI startups that are driving this revolution in terms of humanizing this technology or at least protecting humans, especially kids, from its most problematic consequences?

00:16:59 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, Andrew, I knew and I could feel that there is an ongoing cutthroat competition between and among those, tech bros or those, big biggies in the AI sector within USA as well as between US and China and within China. So, we all know that their drive is definitely speed, for superintelligence and then quantum AI and all those things. They don't want to really, coordinate or consult each other. Sometimes they meet here and there, but their competition is known. In spite of that, my own feeling during these last four, five days meeting with different levels of, engineers and technocrats, the algorithms and, code writers and so on. A data scientist in University of Berkeley, and, some of the investors, in this field, met me in Stanford University. So different places, the response was really very positive, and I am very motivated after coming back from there. My simple ask for them, I joined a, the— This, UN— United Nations, summit on AI, which took place in, Geneva, last July organized by ITU. So I was a keynote speaker in the inaugural session, there. It was attended by, the leaders, the governments from 177 countries and 12,000 other people from the tech sector. And what was my ask and call? I— Rather the challenge because the theme of this summit was AI for Good. My question was, good for whom? Whose good we are talking about? If you are talking about the good of world leaders, if we are talking about the good for governments or some companies, eight or nine or ten, the top tech, the companies, so that they can, produce, new products, and then the people are hungry to buy them and crazy about, not just hungry. So whose good we are talking about? We live in a world where 470 million children are living in war zones. 138 million children are forced to work as child laborers and child slaves. 270 million girls and boys are out of school today. Hundreds of millions of people sleep hungry. So if we cannot bring those issues in our radar in solving the problems of those people, then what are we talking about AI for Good? So I asked this question, and I still ask this question several times in last few days, that you say that you are trying to do good through AI. But have you ever met— Have you ever spent a night or an hour with those people who go hungry? Or the mothers are holding their children, in their arms because they don't know the future. Tomorrow, the bombardments and all these things are happening. Drones are flying and all kind of things are happening. So if you cannot acknowledge that, but more importantly, if you cannot feel whose good you are talking about, then I— I'm afraid that your engineers can work on computers and really find the solution for goodness of the humankind or peace and sustainability and justice and equality. It is not possible. So my call was simple to them. I know that you have not spent time, but your engineers who are working, they have also— Their brains have been mechanized in a way. They are conditioned in a such a way that they cannot think. They know what they are making, but they don't know why they are making these products. So I have given a call, and that resonated so well in the AI summit in July and here in Bay Area, everywhere I tell you, Andrew, I said that send your engineers. They should spend a week or ten days at least in those areas. I will help. I will take them. And I promise that when they come back from there, spending few weeks in the field, in Africa, in Latin America, in South Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa in particular, in the war zones in Middle East, when they come back to their laboratories and sit on their computers, I promise that their brain would be changed, their mind would be changed, and they can start thinking for the first time that whom we are talking about. So if that sense of compassion is built in the minds of those people, it will reflect in the same manner as the biases and divide and hatred is reflecting now in the machine. So it can help. The approach of mindful problem solving will help in preempting and preventing the possible harms, and we are, exposed with these harms every day. In my own work, we see that how, the trafficking and child sexual abuse and these kind of things have increased, using the AI tools. And once in a while, they are exposed. Like in India, recently, the Meta AI issue was brought to the Supreme Court of India and the government of India took it up. Similarly, this Hugging Face, episode or the Australian medical data episode. All these things are now being, known to everyone in the world. So why these harms and taking the course correction of these harms should be the afterthought? Why can't we, preempt and prevent them right from the beginning by way of thinking mindfully, that means compassionately? So the response, Andrew, was tremendously good and people think that let us begin with this. It is a good great idea and very practical to engage engineers in simply igniting their sense of moral responsibility, and mindful problem solving.

00:23:58 Andrew Keen: So— But, yeah, I take your point, of course, Kailash. No one's gonna argue with you on that. But what would happen if you got your way and you took Sam Altman or Dario Amodei or Mark Zuckerberg on one of your trips to Africa or South Asia? How— What kind of response would they have? Would they shut their technology down? Would they turn their for-profit companies into nonprofits? Would they give up entirely? What's your sense?

00:24:29 Kailash Satyarthi: I will never say that they should become the social workers or saints or, liberators of humankind, but they have tremendous power. They have tremendous potential in their companies. And why can't it be channelized for the betterment of humanity in addition to profit they are earning? But that— The race for profit can be reduced as it is cutthroat competition and not competition. It is like the arm race, like the nuclear arms race. As the countries were, racing against each other, who is going to, develop the best destruction, ammunition, and arm. Same way it is happening, unfortunately. So I can simply say I, I'm not against those companies, neither those people, because I strongly believe the humanity inside them. I'm not a preacher or teacher, but I can challenge a little bit that how would you be remembered? How would you like to be remembered in the history? Destructive person who has— Who have built some of the nuclear, arms in the beginning or someone who could save the humanity. You can create the technology which is the best friend and problem solver just by adding an— Adding a component of compassion. And for me, I will repeat again that my compassion is not being kind, not being merciful, not being charitable, not being, just, doing some welfare, but an inner drive that should reflect in the community as well as in the production and deployment of your products, which can reach out for the benefit of the people who are really need you most. So, my challenge is very simple that if you have this opportunity today to save the humankind, this is the time to save this opportunity. It is running so fast. In two years' time, only the regret will remain in our hands.

00:26:53 Andrew Keen: You had an interesting conversation also with Nick Thompson, another old friend of the show, the CEO of The Atlantic, about how to build compassion into AI models. If, Kailash, if compassion is somehow intrinsic to us, if it's built into us as you suggest, then why doesn't it come out? And how can technology bring this thing out?

00:27:20 Kailash Satyarthi: A very good question, Andrew. Very fundamental question. When I advocated that this is— Compassion is innate. I have consulted a number of neurologists, number of sociologists, and anthropologists. And, we have learned that the two forces go hand in hand. One is consciousness, which is responsible for our senses, for our life, living, making decisions through intellect and mind and so on. Another is compassion, which make us feel that— Feel connected with each other and interdependent or inter, related with— Relating with each other. And that sense, in the humankind is the formation of family community, communes, societies, institutions, and everything. Because we have reached to that conclusion over the millions of years that, yes, we cannot live and survive without each other. Better, we have to understand each other and can be the problem solver for each other, and that, brings us together to make a human society. So these are some of those things. But, unfortunately, for centuries, I would say, on one hand, there were teachers and teachers of goodness. They were necessary. They are still helpful, and they will always remain helpful, to keep the humanity intact in us. But how that humanity is reflected in our social causes? How does humanity, the sense of humanity can, help in bringing justice, equality, sustainability, and peace in society and the world? That is not possible without igniting the power of compassion. That's why I have, I brought this idea that— For example, I give this example several times. Think of a mother who is poorest of the poor working in a mine or a construction building, and suddenly she, sees that her toddler child is injured and bleeding. What would she do? Her response would be spontaneous. She will do every possible thing. She is not going to wait and think that what should happen or what somebody can come and help. She can cry for help, but even if she is having one piece of cloth on her body, she will, tear it off, some pieces and use that as a bandage to stop the bleeding of her son or daughter. That is spontaneous. That is without expectation. Even when the blood stops, she becomes happy, but she does not feel arrogant or she does not have the proud in the mind. Happiness is different. Joy is different than this sense of, being proudly or arrogant. And I have spoken to a number of anthropologists and social scientists as well as psychologists. What is this all about? One can say it's love. It's kindness. But, no, it is not love and kindness because it's an action she takes. So taking cognizance spontaneously together with deep connectedness with that child and feeling as it is your own pain, it is your own blood which is coming out and take action. That is the power which is innate in all of us. But our upbringing, our education, made us more and more materialistic, more and more selfish, unfortunately, more and more individualistic. And that is— These are the layers which begin from the identity to your so-called purpose, then the definition of so-called success. And that become a kind of cage and we sit into it and we don't experience that there's something which is much more precious, much more powerful resides in you. So I've seen in my life, I tell you, Andrew, not in my personal life, but in my work when these children who are freed from slavery, the children who are brought to stay with us in our ashrams, in our centers, and the volunteers, the workers, the scholars, the full-time workers, even some of the researchers and journalists who come, and stay, with them in our ashram and spend some time a week or ten days, their level of connectedness with the world, their level of feeling has raised, and their urge to find solution to such problem has also grows higher and deeper. And that's why I call it compassion quotient. So I say that we all have compassion, but normally our compassion quotient remain low because of all these layers, in our mind. And then if we are able to get rid of it and through the exponential learning, through exposures, so sometimes challenging, the inner conscience of people, or consciousness, which can be much more, you know, active, proactive, and the level of compassion means CQ rises through such kind of things. And that is— That was my own experience with so many people who worked with me.

00:33:34 Andrew Keen: To remix George [ed.: Orwell], we're all compassionate, just some more than others. There are people, as you know, in Silicon Valley who see AI as being a technology that will confront all the issues that you've been talking about, terrible poverty and exploitation, this so-called democratization of intelligence. You've, in this conversation, compared AI with nuclear technology, and you've implied that it could destroy humanity, maybe even our species. Is there a positive take, Kailash, on all this? Could AI technology, if used, if implemented correctly, confront directly all this terrible injustice in the world, the terrible poverty, not just in India and Africa, but also in the United States?

00:34:37 Kailash Satyarthi: Well, we have reached to a state where this beautiful technology, which is problem solving technology, and I love it. I respect it as myself being an engineer by education. But as I said, the state of affairs are very frightening. The competition between these companies is like the nuclear war race. That is the example I have given. But I am confident that, there would be a course correction in this situation, definitely. Some people started murmuring that, yes, we have to share something with each other or we have to take a pause for time being, and things like that are just beginning. In my all life and struggle, I know that human conscience is immortal. The humanity always fought against all odds and come out with better answers, better solutions even in case of the nuclear weapons and, after, the Second World War. We realized that there should be some restraint. We realized that we can use the nuclear power for betterment of humanity. So I am quite hopeful and optimistic that AI would also be channelized for the betterment of larger good of humanity.

00:36:17 Andrew Keen: Let's end, Kailash, where we began with your twenty fourteen Nobel Prize. At that point, you were often described as a child's rights activist. Children are, of course, innocent, certainly compared to many adults. When it comes to the impact and the potential of technology, especially AI, should we be thinking about children differently from adults? Are they more or less innocent? There's been so much debate in the United States, of course, about— And around the world about the use, for example, of social media and children, and that debate now is extending to AI. Do we need to extend a particular sensitivity to children and all this new technology when it comes to compassion?

00:37:13 Kailash Satyarthi: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because there are serious dangers which we come across that, the misuse of this very powerful technology causes serious mental health problems, but also, the serious, issues related to child protection, like child sexual abuse or creating and, you know, circulating, the fake material about these children and girls. And sometimes the young people also get involved in making the misuse of it. And, they have their brain and the sense of responsibility is not yet so developed and matured, but even then it is happening. But another danger is that, the excess use of AI tools is harming the creativity of the minds of young people, also the elderly ones, but definitely young people because they are, they know that we'll— They live in the world of competition and speed and data. So they don't want to do this hard work. I see in my own office that, these, youngsters who work with us, they can write a better, speech or better article than I could think. But there is no new creative ideas into it. It is all based on the previous datas, and sometimes we see the old biases, which is available in the data is there. So these are the serious issues. The creative power, the inclusivity of young people, such things are definitely, the matter of concern, and we have to address that, address them at this stage. But on the other hand, if we promote the young people to make use of AI to solve the problems at a small place, a small problem at a small place, I'm sure that, they can think more creatively, and their inner— Innovation, would be enlightened.

00:39:45 Andrew Keen: Well, it's a real honor, Kailash Satyarthi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2014, a man who certainly hasn't stood still since winning that prize. He's spending his time now focusing on globalizing compassion, especially when it comes to AI. He's just done a tour of Silicon Valley. He's currently in Minneapolis, another interesting city. Kailash, thank you so much for appearing on Keen On America. We'd love to get you back as, this AI story becomes more and more central, not just in the United States, but around the world. Thank you so much.

00:40:20 Kailash Satyarthi: Thank you. You can definitely make a big change, and you have already made big change in your life through your podcast, Andrew. And I always say that if not you, then who? Thank you.