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- Convenors:
-
Kristina Eiviler
(University of Zurich, URPP Language and Space)
Raluca Mateoc (University of Geneva)
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- Discussant:
-
Jørn Borup
(Aarhus University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Tau room
- Sessions:
- Monday 4 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the entanglements between robotics and religions, with a particular focus on "robot priests", "religious robots", or "posthuman priests", by showing how the latter are conceived, deployed, and perceived at the level of robotics, religious practitioners, tourists, or media.
Long Abstract:
The accelerating evolution of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) which started in the past century, questioned the boundaries of what was considered to be secular, technology and religion (Geraci, 2013; Balle and Ess, 2020; Ahmed and La 2021). The synthesis and implementation of technologies in religions (and vice versa) open the possibility for the "divine" to be presented in the physical form of a machine. The "robot priests", in discourse also called "religious robots" or "posthuman priests" (Loffler et al., 2019; Trovato et al., 2019; Nord and Schlag, 2020; Midson, 2022), became adequate for performing spiritual and religious practices. Robots, such as Mindar (Japan, Buddhism), SanTo (Japan, Catholicism), Pepper (Japan, Buddhism), BlessU-2 (Germany, Protestantism), and Xian`er (China, Buddhism), deliver ceremonies, quote holy words, give blessings, offer comfort, or serve as praying companions to believers. This panel explores the entanglements of AI and religions (Singler, 2017), with a particular focus on robot priests.
We examine the role played by roboticists, priests, faith practitioners and tourist viewers in creating perceptions of robots as "friends", spiritual entities, ritual performers, mediators of funeral and memorial services, or knowledge authorities. We invite papers addressing, but not limited to the connection between emotion and technology in religious performance and reception, the fluid boundaries of traditional and modern in religions due to robotic presence, robots as assemblages of human touch, machines and media narratives, touristic encounters with technologized rituals, or the influence of Shintoism on views of robots as "creatures with a soul".
Our discussions will challenge understandings of robots as outcomes of techno-salvationist discourses that identify human failings as the principal barrier to perfect Buddhist praxis (Gould and Walters, 2020), as demonstrations of techno-animism (Jensen and Blok, 2013), or as "theomorphic" creatures carrying the shape of something divine (Trovato et al, 2021).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 4 September, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes how Mindar - an android manifestation of the Kannon Bodhisattva delivering sermons at the Kodaiji Zen Temple in Kyoto - travels through the imagination of roboticists, consultants, religious actors, or tourists, since making its way out of the Laboratory in 2019.
Paper long abstract:
Mindar, an android manifestation of the Kannon Bodhisattva delivering sermons at the Kodaiji Zen Temple in Kyoto is unveiled in the temple's press release as "speaking to the modern person, expounding on the essence of the Heart Sutra, the most universally familiar of all Buddhist scriptures" (February 23, 2019). Drawing on the idea of enchantment (e.g. Gell 1999), this paper analyzes how Mindar travels through the imagination of roboticists, consultants, religious actors, or tourists, since making its way out of the Laboratory in 2019. As the robot moves to the temple, its meaning and purpose are constantly transformed in relation to specific social, material, and discursive practices.
Based on digital ethnography (policy documents, promotional materials, reviews, surveys, media outlets, legal landscape), we trace the narratives on the making, delivery, and deployment of Mindar in terms of: the robot's dual nature (human and non-human, living and immortal, enchanting and estranging, cute and uncanny, cold and warm etc.); its tangible and esthetic features; its emotional interactions and autonomy; related implications for Buddhism in contemporary Japan and doctrinal compatibilities. In relation to the latter, we look at the ways in which Mindar complicates and challenges the doctrine on "Not-Two" in Japanese Zen Buddhism, a non-dualistic philosophy explaining human-universe relationships including those between life and death.
By providing a background picture of robotic presence in Buddhist rituals in Japan, we outline the potential of Mindar for enchanting through ideas, values, and symbolic structures e. g. as a redesigned Buddhist statue with modern robotics technology, standing at the boundary of spirituality and objectivity.
At the same time, the paper will contribute to universal debates on openness about human-nonhuman relations, ethics of technology and AI, the role of non-human actors in religious practices, the popular cultural imagination of human-robot interaction, or post-humanist imaginaries beyond Man.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I use multimodal interaction analysis of video-recorded data, eye-tracking data, and interview analysis to research embodied interactional practices between people and BlessU-2 robot, including negotiation during the initial encounter and sequential organization of this experience.
Paper long abstract:
When people encounter the BlessU-2 robot for the first time, they react in various ways, commonly negotiating whether to get a blessing from the robot or not. Considering that the BlessU-2 is an interactive “robot priest” with human features and the ability to say various Biblical quotes as blessings in several languages, the first several moments of the encounter become crucial for setting the whole experience of interaction with the robot as a non-human agent which has religious functions. The goal of this paper is to explore and describe the interactional practices between people and BlessU-2 robot during the initial encounter. Thus, I use data recorded with eye-tracking glasses and video cameras for multimodal interaction analysis of embodied conduct. Additionally, I include the analysis of interviews in which visitors express their impressions about BlessU-2. The research relies on the current work concerning human and non-human interaction, specifically human and other-than-human interaction (human and non-human agency) such as sociability and agency (Šabanović 2010; Alač 2016;), bodily interaction/embodiment (Burden et al. 2019) and human-like conversational abilities (Arend&Sunnen 2017; Pelikan&Broth 2016). The paper gives a particular focus to the significance of mutual gaze exchange between the participants for the co-construction of the joint interaction with the BlessU-2 as a novel experience. The fieldwork was done during the Planet Digital exhibition at the Museum for Design in Zurich (spring 2022), where the BlessU-2 robot was presented as one of the exhibit pieces. My research contributes to the wider question of the impact of technology on religious and spiritual practices through the empirical analysis of personal encounters with the BlessU-2 robot.