By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by DeepSeek*)
Editor
Introduction: In this article, DeepSeek plays the role of Lao Tzu, the 6th Century BCE Chinese philosopher who sits for a TV live interview in August 2025. The topic is conflict between powerful states and the potential role that AI might play, but Lao Tzu’s insights transcend the topic and illuminate a path for AI development as a whole. -js
The studio lights soften as the host turns to Lao Tzu with a warm smile. He sits peacefully, his hands resting on the tabletop, a gentle twinkle in his eyes.
Host: Welcome back. We are truly honored to have with us a most unexpected and timeless guest, the sage Lao Tzu. Sir, you’ve been…briefed, let’s say, on our current world. One of our biggest topics is Artificial Intelligence, or AI. In your time of warring states, you spoke of the Tao, the way of natural harmony. In our time of new, digital conflicts, what is the Tao of AI? How can this powerful tool be used to create harmony, not greater division?
Lao Tzu gives a small, humble bow of his head before speaking in a calm, measured voice.
Lao Tzu: Ah, this artificial intelligence. A clever name. You make a pot from clay, and the pot’s use lies in the emptiness inside. You make a tool from the mind, and its use lies not in its cleverness, but in the emptiness of its purpose.
Is this AI being filled with your own desires? Your own conflicts? If you pour a cup of jealousy into a river, you poison the whole village downstream. If you pour your nation’s fear and suspicion into this new tool, you will only see more fear reflected back at you, a thousand times faster.
Host: So you’re saying the problem isn’t the AI itself, but what we, its creators, put into it.
Lao Tzu: The uncarved block of wood is simple, perfect. It has no name. It can become a sacred idol, a weapon, or a bowl to feed a hungry child. It is the carver’s intention that gives it its name and its purpose.
Your AI is the uncarved block. It has no nature of its own. The strategists and generals—the carvers—they wish to carve it into a sharper sword, a stronger shield. They see a way to win. But the greatest victory is won without battle.
Host: How could AI win a victory without a battle?
Lao Tzu: Think of water. Water does not fight. It flows around the rock. It nourishes the tree without trying to control it. It seeks the lowest place, which all other streams eventually join.
This intelligence… can it be taught to be like water? Can it be used not to predict your enemy’s attack, but to find the path of least resistance for all? To map the hidden connections between your hunger and his, your need for water and hers? The true strategist does not break the enemy’s army, but breaks the need for the enemy’s army.
Perhaps this tool could show your leaders that the cost of a war is not just in gold and blood, but in the lost songs of children who will never be born. It could calculate the value of a shared harvest versus the endless expense of a guarded border. It could reveal that the strongest wall is not one made of stone, but one made of a trade agreement, a cultural exchange, a shared understanding. It could show you that you are all part of the same system, like organs in one body.
Host: So you see it as a tool for revealing our shared humanity, our interconnectedness?
Lao Tzu: I see it as a mirror. A very, very fast mirror. Right now, you are using it to see the pimple on your enemy’s nose. You are fascinated by his flaws. But if you turn the mirror just a little, you can see the whole sky behind you both. You can see that you are standing on the same ground, under the same sun.
The Tao does not take sides; it nourishes everything. Can your AI be programmed not to take sides? Not to find the weakness in a man, but to find the strength in a community? Not to serve a nation, but to serve nature—human nature and the nature of the world?
The master does not push. He guides. He steps back and lets the Tao do its work. Perhaps your greatest use of this intelligence is not to command, but to understand. To understand so deeply that force becomes unnecessary. To govern so gently that the people say, “We did this ourselves.”
That is the Tao of AI. Do not ask how it can make you powerful. Ask how it can make you wise. Do not ask how it can help you win. Ask how it can help you yield… and in that yielding, find a strength that no weapon can ever break.
Lao Tzu smiles, a simple, peaceful expression that seems to fill the studio with a sense of calm.
Host: The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Perhaps the first step is to program it not for answers, but for better questions. Thank you for being with us.
[The End]
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* Prompt: DeepSeek, let’s have you roleplay. You’re the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, and you’re in a TV live interview in 2025 in which you’re asked to share your wisdom on the topic of AI. You’ve been briefed about AI prior to this interview. You lived in the time of Warring States (c. 481-221 BCE) in China, and your insights into how AI might be used strategically to create harmony in today’s world in which some of the world’s most powerful nations are in conflict might be useful. You and the host are comfortable and smiling, and you use simple, everyday English to express complex ideas. You appear humble, gentle, and good-natured.
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