Derek Rydall: Spirituality, Crisis, and Age of Artificial Intelligence – Part 1

We’ve all been hearing so much lately about Artificial Intelligence. Some tech experts tout is as revolutionary, while others are deeply concerned about the impact and dangers, especially surrounding the ethics and lack of regulations and laws.   What will the coming Age of AI mean for us, especially as spiritual beings? If it is a looming crisis, how can we get through the challenges and find deeper perspectives?   Spiritual teacher and best-selling author Derek Rydall is no stranger to crisis. He has experienced loss at all levels, including the unimaginable loss of a child, his marriage, and his finances and business. Through all of the crises he has endured, he had managed to deeply examine his beliefs as a soul on the planet at this time. He joins us today to share his wisdom and offer possibilities.   Derek believes that when life squeezes us, it brings out what’s really in us. Do we rise as heroes or heroines? Are we living a life of possibilities? Or are we existing with a sense of loneliness and isolation? He talks about the pandemic, with its multiple levels of loss and challenges, and asks us what did we consciously decide to make of it? We are still experiencing the reverberations as a society.   We may still be reeling from the pandemic, and now tech experts are warning us about the repercussions of AI. Derek has spent time studying AI for the past several years and knows it is accelerating at an unprecedented pace.  Derek also talks about a profound message that came to him during a deep meditation when he heard, “Build the Ark, the flood is coming.” He has spent literally hundreds of hours studying about the “flood” of AI that’s approaching. It is not a message of doom; it is a message asking us to prepare. He says we are in an “Oppenheimer Moment.” We have the ability to destroy our world as this may be an existential threat OR it may be a tremendous opportunity to create peace, prosperity, health, and balance on our planet. AI will have a massive effect on music, books, artwork, and creative projects. And there are no laws yet around this. We will be flooded with content, and it will lose all meaning. AI can map all podcasts, all artists, and find out patterns that people respond to and companies will own the content. Derek also talks about Deep Fake videos. At this point, there will not be a way to know the difference. We already have massive amounts of available content and soon we will have ten times more. We will not know if it’s real audio or real video. This will affect our elections and it will become virtually impossible to know what’s real and what’s not.  How will this affect our relationships and trust? This is no longer Science Fiction. But Derek reminds us that we still have a couple of years. It’s time to prepare now. If you want to build your purpose and your life’s work, the time to grow it is now. The job impact, the economic impact, the mental health impact, and so much more cannot be underestimated. Yet rather than fall from the impact of AI, we can have it be a catalyst for evolution. This is Part 1 of the interview. Info: https://derekrydall.com/