Navigating the Spiritual Crisis of Modern AI with Sam Harris 🤖

Join Shane Smith and Sam Harris as they explore the profound spiritual challenges posed by artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the future of human understanding.

Navigating the Spiritual Crisis of Modern AI with Sam Harris 🤖
VICE News
474.7K views • Oct 16, 2025
Navigating the Spiritual Crisis of Modern AI with Sam Harris 🤖

About this video

Shane Smith sits down with Sam Harris, philosopher, neuroscientist, and bestselling author for a
deep conversation about artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the fragile future of humanity.

They begin with Sam’s early life and unlikely path, from studying English at Stanford to
dropping out after a transformative MDMA experience that led him to India and Nepal, where he
meditated and even served briefly on the Dalai Lama’s security detail. What follows is a wide-
ranging exploration of how psychedelics, meditation, and neuroscience all shape our
understanding of the mind and what happens when machines start thinking faster than we ever
could.

From the quantum weirdness of parallel universes to the moral peril of unaligned AI, Sam warns
that humanity isn’t in an arms race with China or Google—but with its own ignorance. The two
dive into the ethics of wealth and power, the danger of tech billionaires acting like Bond villains,
and how meditation might be the only antidote to an accelerating world we no longer understand.

Funny, philosophical, and fearlessly honest, this episode tackles everything from Elon Musk and
Bill Gates to psychedelics and the illusion of the self, weaving science and spirituality into a
single, provocative conversation about where we go next.

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=============================
Chapters
00:00 Welcome, Sam Harris!
02:41 Deli Land Security and the Universe
12:30 The Processing Time of AI vs Human
24:50 The Consequences of Human Evolution
37:26 The Power of the Salesman
40:48 Recreating the '60s with MDMA
49:00 Laws, Religion, and the Base of Society
56:18 Drugs and the Young Minds
1:07:30 The Brain Activity with Psycodelics
1:17:10 The Process of Writing
1:30:30 The Implications of Free Will
1:42:08 The Dark Side of Social Media
1:49:03 Social Media Addiction in Young People
1:58:44 The use of Platforms for Investigation
2:08:19 The Freedom of Journalism
2:20:23 Final Thoughts
=============================

The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Intelligence ft. Sam Harris | Shane Has Questions
https://youtu.be/_409MGkzows

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Video Information

Views

474.7K

Likes

2.9K

Duration

02:27:58

Published

Oct 16, 2025

User Reviews

4.3
(94)
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