Quantum Buddhism as an Ethical Framework for Digital Modernity: Artificial Intelligence, Reflective Consciousness, and Sustainable Human Development

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the relevance of Buddhist thought in responding to the development of digital technology, artificial intelligence, and the crisis of human development. This study is important because technological advancement not only increases efficiency and computational capacity but also produces social inequality, digital surveillance, cognitive dependence, and ecological pressure. This study employs a qualitative method with a philosophical-critical approach and conceptual analysis. The data were collected through a literature review and analyzed through a critical interpretation of the Buddhist concepts of interdependence, consciousness, change, and causality. The findings show that the main challenge of digital modernity does not lie solely in the increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence but also in the declining human capacity to guide technology through reflective awareness and moral responsibility. The interdependent relationship among humans, technology, and nature causes every technological development to produce social, cognitive, and ecological consequences that subsequently reshape human life. Therefore, the digital crisis constitutes a crisis of consciousness in which computational capabilities develop faster than the human capacity to evaluate their purposes, limits, and impacts. This study contributes to the development of technology ethics and sustainability-oriented AI governance. Its originality lies in the formulation of Quantum Buddhism as an ethical-philosophical framework for reflective, ecological, and intergenerational human development.