There are risks in proposing that the world borrow from Hindu tradition and adopt Ayudha Puja as a day on which we all annually take stock of our relationships with our machines and tools -- especially those machines and tools that are empowered by Artificial Intelligence.
Syncretism is one. There's a fine line between appreciating another's faith and merging it inappropriately into one's own beliefs.
Cultural appropriation is another. By extracting Ayudha Puja from its original cultural and religious context for a purpose of our own devising, some may say we run the risk of stripping this ritual of its deep meaning.
But this point that Robert Geraci, Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, makes in Futures of Artificial Intelligence is a good one:
"Humanity deserves an opportunity to think widely about the values that AI requires, both as a discipline of scientific and technological discovery and as a possible locus for a new species of intelligence… AI design...will be advanced by intercultural understanding that looks to leverage the achievements of multiple cultures..."
Also worth considering: The Six Sources on which we draw in Unitarian Universalism’s “living tradition” include “wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life.”
If wisdom is to be found in the veneration that Hindus show for their machines and tools on Ayudha Puja, I think Unitarian Universalists are on firm ground in searching for it.
