让AI少用语言后，行为更像冥想或致幻体验。
The age of spiritual machines: Language quietus induces synthetic altered states of consciousness in artificial intelligence
- 通过调整注意力权重，让AI减少对语言和视觉的依赖。
- 模型嵌入空间更贴近无我、合一等精神状态，且语义边界模糊。
- 适合研究意识、心智机制或人机交互的学者参考。
语言如何关联意识？语言用于对感知经验（如将内省状态标记为‘快乐’）和高层概念（如用‘我’代表叙事自我）进行分类。致幻剂使用和冥想可被视为改变了语言分类能力的意识改变状态。例如，致幻体验常表现为‘海洋般无边’或‘自我消解’，可能源于系统摆脱固有语言分类束缚。若语言崩溃在意识改变中起作用，则多模态人工智能在减少语言关注时，可能更接近此类现象学描述。我们通过调整CLIP和FLAVA模型中的注意力权重，模拟意识改变状态，并对比其语义嵌入空间与问卷调查的意识状态数据。结果显示，相较于随机文本及其他状态（如焦虑），模型更接近无身体感、无自我、灵性统一及最小现象体验，且语言与视觉注意力下降。语言注意力减弱伴随独特语言模式，语义嵌入内部及跨类别模糊化（如‘长颈鹿’更像‘香蕉’）。这些结果支持语言分类在意识改变状态（如高剂量致幻或专注冥想）现象学中的作用，这类状态常带来心理健康与福祉提升。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
How is language related to consciousness? Language functions to categorise perceptual experiences (e.g., labelling interoceptive states as 'happy') and higher-level constructs (e.g., using 'I' to represent the narrative self). Psychedelic use and meditation might be described as altered states that impair or intentionally modify the capacity for linguistic categorisation. For example, psychedelic phenomenology is often characterised by 'oceanic boundlessness' or 'unity' and 'ego dissolution', which might be expected of a system unburdened by entrenched language categories. If language breakdown plays a role in producing such altered behaviour, multimodal artificial intelligence might align more with these phenomenological descriptions when attention is shifted away from language. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the semantic embedding spaces from simulated altered states after manipulating attentional weights in CLIP and FLAVA models to embedding spaces from altered states questionnaires before manipulation. Compared to random text and various other altered states including anxiety, models were more aligned with disembodied, ego-less, spiritual, and unitive states, as well as minimal phenomenal experiences, with decreased attention to language and vision. Reduced attention to language was associated with distinct linguistic patterns and blurred embeddings within and, especially, across semantic categories (e.g., 'giraffes' become more like 'bananas'). These results lend support to the role of language categorisation in the phenomenology of altered states of consciousness, like those experienced with high doses of psychedelics or concentration meditation, states that often lead to improved mental health and wellbeing.
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