‘Meet Your Maker’: The robot priests taking the world by storm
In an era of diminished religious affiliation, faith leaders are turning to technology to help usher worshippers back into the flock.
In the ancient city of Kyoto in Japan stands a 400-year-old Buddhist temple called Kodaiji. Surrounded by perfectly-raked zen gardens, decorative rocks and maple trees, Kodaiji is just one of around 1,600 places of worship in the Kyoto area. From the outside, it seems hardly distinguishable from the other popular temples in the prefecture.
It is on the inside, however, that Kodaiji clearly differs from your typical Buddhist sanctuary. A priest by the name of Mindar stands in the main hall giving a sermon to a small crowd of visitors. As people come and go, she moves her hands enthusiastically as she recounts the Heart Sutra — an important text in Buddhist teachings which teaches the importance of compassion and following the ways of Buddha. Projections over the walls of the temple illustrate with light and colour the words spoken by Mindar.
The eyes of the crowd follow her movements with reactions spanning from astonishment to wonder as she looks around the room, making eye contact with various visitors dotted around the room.
Whether it can really be called eye contact, however, is a point of contention. Instead of eyes, Mindar has cameras in her head which she uses to surveil the room for present worshippers. Instead of skin, a smooth layer of silicone covers her head, hands and shoulders to give the impression of a human. Instead of a brain, a web of electrical connections and microchips control all her moving parts; from the opening and closing of her palms to the gentle movement of her lips as she speaks in her high-pitched, otherworldly voice.
Mindar is one of the world’s first android priests — and if trends are to be believed, she is far from the last. Religion, a branch of society oft untouched by the developing technologies of the modern world, looks ready to timidly take its first steps into the future. But not all spiritual leaders are fully on board with allowing an android at the helm of their centuries-old religion. Can anything be done to change their minds?
Bringing Religion to a New Generation
Mindar’s likeness is based on Kannon, the goddess of Mercy in the Buddhist faith — though some critics have argued she’s more like “Frankenstein’s monster” than the living embodiment of a deity. She was developed by Kodaiji in partnership with robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University for a cost of around $1 million. The goal? Encourage worshippers to return to temples and renew their faith — a rather momentous task in a country like Japan, where formal religious affiliation has been declining for decades.
“Robots are the kind of thing that can pass on Buddhism to younger people,” says Tensho Goto, the chief steward of Kodaiji. “This robot will never die; it will just keep updating itself and evolving.”
While Mindar’s presence may be revolutionary to temple visitors, her abilities are still limited. As of now, she is only capable of reciting pre-programmed sermons as well as limited body movement. It is still an astounding sight, but Mindar has little real power to distinctively interact with worshippers.
However, plans to build on her current skillset are already in the works with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). “With AI, we hope it will grow in wisdom to help people overcome even the most difficult troubles,” says Goto. “It’s changing Buddhism.”
Traditionalists have argued that the image of Mindar does not represent the goddess Kannon, with some going as far to call it sacrilegious to worship a machine. Goto disagrees, believing it is a way to keep up with modern times, and most importantly, modern worshippers. “Buddhism isn’t a belief in a God, it’s pursuing Buddha’s path,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s represented by a machine, a piece of scrap metal or a tree.”
Japan is a country more inclined to accept the robotisation of traditional roles. Robots can already be seen in a wide range of employment — they act as receptionists in hotels and waiters in restaurants.
Some industries, like that of funeral care, have even created androids to conduct services by chanting sutras over the deceased and live-streaming the event on the internet so that distant family members can bear witness. The integration of technology and theology is just another whistle-stop on Japan’s journey into the future.
Powered-up Prayers
Five thousand miles away from the ancient city of Kyoto, another technological creation is being developed to help bring followers closed to God. TechOcean, a robotics company located in Warsaw, Poland, has been working on a robot tailor-made to suit the country’s dominant religion — Catholicism.
Enter SanTO: the world’s first ever Catholic robot, according to its creator Gabriele Trovato. The robot stands at about 17 inches tall and has the appearance of a statue of a saint, inspired by sacred and neoclassical architecture. It wears a flowing robe and has hands outstretched, palms to the Heavens. A light-up halo encircles its head, glowing as its deep, digital voice echoes from a speaker.
Inside of SanTO lies plenty of power — a computer, microphone, sensors and a facial recognition-enabled camera all help it carry out its task of interacting with worshippers.
“It was clear to me last year during the lockdown,” Trovato says, “that many people couldn’t go to church. I thought a machine like SanTO could give a helping hand.”
Unlike Mindar, SanTO is powered by artificial intelligence. It is programmed with 2,000 years of knowledge of the Catholic faith and can field questions from curious believers. SanTO will listen to and analyse audio input, then give a response it feels is best fitted to the query — “a bit like Catholic Alexa,” according to one tester. Its aim is to provide ‘spiritual succor’ to elderly people whose mobility and social contact may be limited.
Giving the robot a simple prompt, like telling it you’re worried, SanTO will respond with Biblical wisdom: “From the Gospel according to Matthew,” it says, “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
More difficult and theologically averse questions can also be asked, though SanTO can struggle to give a solid answer. One with wavering faith might ask something like “SanTO, is there a heaven?” Enigmatically, SanTO can reply along the lines of: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Testers of the SanTO robot in Poland have been surprisingly receptive, though many of them would still prefer a real priest over a robot. However, they are keeping an open mind about the benefits SanTO could bring to the church, with one saying: “Anything that brings you closer to God is a good thing.”
Priests however, have been less enthusiastic, with some seeing it as an empty impersonation of those in consecrated positions of power.
“I think we can use the robot to help understand Christian teachings,” says Sławomir Abramowski, a Polish Catholic priest based in Warsaw. But he stopped short of endorsing SanTO as a replacement for a living religious official. “It has no soul,” he said bluntly. “It is not a person.”
SanTO has divided opinion on how it should be used in religious worship — a question the creators have left up to each individual to decide. From gospels written on papyrus centuries ago to smartphone apps which allow for Bible study, inventions like SanTO are certainly pushing the boundaries when it comes to the modernisation of our ancient religions.
At What Cost?
As technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics develop, creations beyond our wildest imaginations become possible. Problems once unsolvable become child’s play when these monstrous digital brains can crunch the numbers and provide answers in milliseconds. Through the lens of artificial intelligence, we can see things from a new perspective; discover new vantage points previously unseen thanks to the tunnel-vision caused by bias, a truly human phenomenon.
There is a fear, however that the core messages of religions could be distorted by a robot’s interpretation — ultimately skewing entire belief systems away from their original meaning. New perspectives taken by an intelligent computer may not be aligned with traditional, spiritual understandings of holy texts, resulting in a divide of opinion. Questions posed and answers received may lack the nuance of human understanding — instead replaced with algorithmic processing and interpretation of historic data. Is it realistic for us to expect machines to interpret with emotion, the way humans can?
In important practices like personal prayer, introducing a digital middle-man into the direct conversation between worshipper and Lord may be viewed by some as disrupting an essential connection for all religious followers. When the presence or image of God is replaced with that of a machine — be it silicone-covered android or quaint, light-up statuette —should that be considered idolatry? By mechanising the processes of worship and divine guidance, are we eliminating the somewhat mystical and esoteric nature of the religious experience?
And of course, the cliché point of all discussions of artificial intelligence: sentience. If a sentient robot loaded with thousands of years of religious information develops its own agenda, it can control the human and the religion if it is the one being worshipped. This surely goes against the teachings of God; a machine without humanity guiding the souls of millions on their religious journeys.
These are but a fraction of the the complex moral questions that must be navigated by all worshippers in the face of these new technologies. Most faith communities are just at the beginning of their journey in incorporating AI and robots into their practices. But this technology is here to stay, and could change the way we worship forever.
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