Wisdom & AI Symposium 2025
A symposium of AI professionals, leadership experts and Buddhist teachers working together.
About this event
Wisdom & AI is a network of AI professionals, leadership experts and Buddhist teachers working together, and this symposium is our launch event.
The Symposium takes place over two days on Thursday 13th and Friday 14th November 2025, in London, just a few minutes walk from Kings Cross.
The event is a unique opportunity to explore the interface between AI and Buddhist psychology, philosophy and contemplative practice, in the peaceful setting of a meditation centre.
We will focus on the following four topics:
The current reality of AI safety & professionals:
What are the issues in terms of safety and potential loss of control? How do we support the community of AI safety professionals? How can Buddhist teachers and AI safety professionals engage in meaningful dialogue with practical implications?Using AI wisely:
AI, like any technology, is an extension of the human mind. Given the deep connection between AI and the human mind, safely navigating changes brought about by the development of AI will benefit from a holistic understanding of what the mind actually is. How does the Buddhist contemplative knowledge of self, mind, and consciousness change our relationship with AI?The technology aligning AI with wisdom:
What are the current advances in aligning AI with wisdom? What progress can be made on benchmarking? What are the potential fundamental problems with building wisdom into AI systems?AI, Buddhism, & Education:
How do we best teach in the age of AI? What pedagogical insights can we gain from Buddhist wisdom? Can we enhance the teaching of wisdom and compassion with AI?
Thursday 13 November 2025
Doors open at 07.30 am.
08.00 Welcome and introduction
— Jonathan Garner & Vinciane Rycroft
09.00 - 10.45 The current reality of AI safety & professionals
What are the issues in terms of safety and potential loss of control? How do we support the community of AI safety professionals?
Speakers: Eric Stefanello, Samuel Hargestam, Chris Scammell, Sophie Maclaren.
09.00 Introduction by facilitator Sophie Maclaren
09.05 What are these machines? And where are we in terms of control? — Eric Stefanello
09.25 AI risks and the reality of AI safety work — Samuel Hargestam
09.45 Buddhism and AI Safety — Chris Scammell
10.05 - 10.45 Roundtable on the current reality of AI safety and professionals.
10.45 Break
11.15 - 13.00 Using AI wisely
How does the Buddhist contemplative knowledge of self, mind, and consciousness change our relationship with AI?
Speakers: Marieke van Vugt, Jonathan Garner, Jan van der Breggen, Lily Ng.
11.15 Introduction by facilitator Marieke van Vugt
11.20 AI as a mirror to understand ourselves — Jonathan Garner
11.40 Clarity and cognisance: discerning the human mind from artificial intelligence — Jan Van der Breggen
12.00 Contemplating on self and imputing self — Lily Ng
12.20 - 13.00 Roundtable: Can contemplative approaches change how we relate with AI?
13.00 Lunch
14.30 - 16:30 Workshops
Workshop 1: Creativity workshop — Facilitated by Ivan Gavriloff
Workshop 2: Contemplations on understanding self, mind, and consciousness and how it impacts our relationship with AI — Facilitated by Lily Ng and Jonathan Garner.
16.30 Break
17.00 - 18.30 Plenary & reflections
Fridy 14 November 2025
Doors open at 08.30 am.
09.00 - 10.45 The technology aligning AI with wisdom
What are the current advances in aligning AI with wisdom? And what progress can be made on benchmarking?
Speakers: Ruben Laukkonen, Adam Elwood, Fionn Inglis.
09.00 Introduction by facilitator Vinciane Rycroft
09.05 Flourishing intelligence: Why we need computational maps of meditation — Ruben Laukkonen
09.25 Contemplative superalignment — Adam Elwood
09.45 Measuring wisdom and compassion in Large Language Models (LLMs) — Fionn Inglis
10.05 - 10.45 Roundtable: What are the potential fundamental problems with building wisdom into AI systems?
10.45 Break
11.15 - 13.00 AI, Buddhism & Education
How do we best teach, and in particular teach Buddhist wisdom, in the age of AI? Can we enhance the teaching of wisdom and compassion with AI?
Speakers: Jonathan Gold, Pyi Phyo Kyaw, Fionn Inglis.
11.15 Introduction by facilitator Fionn Inglis
11.20 Using Buddhist concepts for AI-supported learning — Jonathan Gold
11.40 Embracing the age of AI: What skills do students of Buddhism need? — Pyi Phyo Kyaw
12.00 - 13.00 Roundtable and interactive exercises on enhancing teaching with AI.
13.00 Lunch
14.30 - 16:30 Workshops
Workshop 1: Defining benchmarks — Facilitated by Fionn Inglis & Adam Elwood
Workshop 2: How do we support AI safety and professionals? — Facilitated by Sophie MacLaren.
16.30 Break
17.00 - 18.30 Plenary, reflections, & close
The programme may be subject to minor changes.
With many thanks to Rigpa UK for making their meditation space available for this event.
The Symposium is organised by the Wisdom & AI network. The network is open to professionals dedicated to bringing clarity to the public debate on AI, by sharing relevant insights from both wisdom and technical perspectives.
About the main contributors
Jan van der Breggen ↩
leads a dynamic AI team at the insurance company Auto & General Australia. He is also a Buddhist teacher who has studied and practiced Buddhism for thirty years under the guidance of many Tibetan Buddhist masters. From 2006 to 2009, he participated in a three-year retreat and he is currently completing Milinda, a 10-year Buddhist teacher training programme, while working full time as a business analytics professional.
Thomas Doctor ↩
is Professor of Buddhist Studies and Principal of the Kathmandu University Centre for Buddhist Studies (KU-CBS) at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI), a unique platform bridging traditional Himalayan Buddhist learning and modern academia. Situated within a large living monastery, KU-CBS explores critically informed approaches to the threefold paradigm of learning, reflection, and meditation. Thomas also serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Apparent Selves (CSAS), a transdisciplinary institute that brings together wisdom traditions and cutting-edge science, seeking to constructively address the deepest questions of life and progress. Thomas will give the pre-symposium talk.
Adam Elwood ↩
is Director of GenAI at Aily Labs where he leads twenty-five researchers, data scientists and ML engineers across four countries, launched a decision‑intelligence platform adopted by 30 K+ enterprise users, and contributed to the EU AI Act code of practice. Adam also co-authors research papers including An LLM-Based Approach for Insight Generation in Data Analysis and Contemplative Wisdom for Superalignment. He has a long-term meditation practice and is passionate about consciousness, physics, philosophy and artificial intelligence.
Fionn Inglis ↩
is a researcher and educator working at the intersection of contemplative traditions and artificial intelligence. He studied Cognitive Psychology and Philosophy in the honours programme at Amsterdam University College, and Computer Science at University College Dublin. For the past decade, Fionn has organised and facilitated Buddhist youth retreats, guiding young people in meditative and contemplative practices. Deeply interested in the reciprocal relationship between AI and Dharma, he explores how AI can effectively disseminate Buddhist teachings and how Buddhist insights can inform AI alignment. Fionn is currently working on developing contemplative benchmarks, contemplative constitutional AI and a self-inquiry chatbot.
Jonathan Garner ↩
is the founder of Mind over Tech—digital behaviour change experts who help organisations build cultures of positive digital habits. Jonathan spends his time helping clients to adopt healthy relationships with the digital world. He teaches methods to align actions with intentions when working within a digital space to improve overall wellbeing, productivity, and connection. Jonathan delivers training and talks for companies such as Deloitte, Google, Slaughter & May, Vodafone, and KPMG. He is the co-author of Your Best Digital Life, and the chair of the Wisdom & AI Network.
Ivan Gavriloff ↩
is Professor in the Department of Religion and Director of the Center for Culture, Society and Religion at Princeton University. A scholar of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, he is especially interested in Buddhist approaches to meaning, ethics, language and learning. He is the author of The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007) and Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (2015) as well as numerous articles. In his current work, he is developing a Buddhist approach to politics and social thought.
Samuel Hargestam ↩
is an AI safety strategist largely focused on expanding capital available to AI safety. He has worked to create and legitimize for-profit AI safety through investing, advising VCs, and the publication of the AI Assurance Tech Report, while also increasing philanthropic capital through risk demonstrations and dialogues with high-net-worth individuals and foundation leaders. He now works with Yoshua Bengio on his LawZero initiative. Samuel has cofounded multiple companies, including the biomanufacturing company EnginZyme (a 2021 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer) and the WiFi company Instabridge. He serves on the board of the Astralis Foundation and the Effective Institutions Project.
Ruben Laukkonen ↩
is the director of the Flourishing Intelligence Program (FLIP) at Linacre College, University of Oxford. He is also a senior researcher and co-director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing at Linacre College, University of Oxford, and a visiting Professor at the Centre for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Ruben has made significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the science of consciousness, meditation, and insight. His work reveals a pathway towards better and safer artificial intelligence based on the neuroscience of consciousness and the mechanisms underlying contemplative wisdom. Together with an interdisciplinary team of physicists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, and Buddhist scholars, he initiated the Contemplative Artificial Intelligence and Contemplative Superalignment projects. His research has been featured widely, including The New York Times, TIME, Scientific American, TEDx, Vice, ABC, Aeon, VOX, New Scientist, and in the Nature collection.
Lily Ng ↩
is a Buddhist teacher specialised in Mahayana Buddhism and the contemplation of self. She currently oversees the development of teachers for Rigpa, a network of Buddhist centres from the Nyingma or ‘Ancient Tradition’ of Tibetan Buddhism. She has participated in a three-year retreat and is currently completing the 10-year Buddhist teacher training programme called Milinda.
Sophie Maclaren ↩
is the Visiting Fellow of Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She specialises in workplace wellbeing, mindfulness, and leadership development through interactive workshops, facilitated programmes, and executive coaching. As well as designing mindfulness and leadership programmes at SBS, Sophie has worked with over 30 elite law-firms, banks, sports teams, universities, social enterprises, and professional service firms. She also worked with the UK parliament on their Mindfulness Initiative think tank and projects.
Pyi Phyo Kyaw ↩
is a departmental lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the University of Oxford, where she recently co-organised a Colloquium on Buddhism and AI. Pyi was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow at King's College London. She is an expert in historical and current textual and practice aspects of Theravada Buddhism including Abhidhamma, Buddha worship and Buddhist pedagogy. She has also undertaken intensive meditation practice within different meditation traditions, and monastic training in Myanmar as a precept-nun in nunneries in Bhurma, and continues to practice and teach meditation and Buddhism.
Eric Stefanello ↩
is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, a former Armament Engineer (DGA) and an AI researcher. He is a specialist of the safety and security of complex software and systems. Former director of business development for the EADS/Airbus group, he is co-founder of DIFENSO, a European player in data protection in the Cloud and in networks, certified by ANSSI. He is the founder of the RAISE foundation: «Responsible AI for Safety and Ethics » dedicated to finance research, tools and methods aiming to ensure AIs will be safe by design and define related certification standards.
Vinciane Rycroft ↩
has thirty years of experience in education management, governance and contemplative practice. Since 2018, she has served as an active board member of Rigpa, a network of Buddhist centres. She is also a trainer for Mind with Heart, a charity she founded in 2012 to help secondary schools foster healthy and compassionate cultures, and for Bodhi, a project sharing the essence of Buddhist teachings with a public audience. Initially, Vinciane trained in the science of education and sustainable development, and spent ten years in UN lobbying, environmental education and charity management.
Chris Scammell ↩
is an AI Safety specialist with a passion for Buddhism and projects at the intersection between AI and Buddhism. He worked for Conjecture, a company redefining AI safety by building a new AI architecture. Chris is currently working to develop The Buddhism & AI Initiative, a collaborative effort to bring together Buddhist communities, technologists, and contemplative researchers worldwide to help shape the future of artificial intelligence through high-impact initiatives.
Marieke van Vugt ↩
an associate professor in the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen. Her research aims to understand how, when, and why we mind-wander. She is also fascinated by how this mind-wandering process is adaptive--as in the case of creativity--and when it becomes maladaptive, as is the case for depressive rumination. She uses a multimodal approach that combines computational modeling, scalp and intracranial EEG, behavioral studies, and eye-tracking. In addition, she is interested in how meditation practice affects our cognitive system, and she investigates meditation in both Western practitioners and Tibetan monks.