Religion and Robots: Towards the Synthesis of Two Extremes

Gabriele Trovato*, Loys De Saint Chamas, Masao Nishimura, Renato Paredes, Cesar Lucho, Alexander Huerta-Mercado, Francisco Cuellar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Humanity has been dreaming of robots since the ancient times. Historically, robots — originally called automata — have been the products of technology and faith. The relationship between robots and religion has disappeared in the last two centuries, as science and religion parted ways, and have typically been seen in opposition. Nowadays, as robots and AI are going to spread in human society, new possibilities and new ethical challenges are on the horizon. In this paper, we summarise the state of the art in robotics and religion, and propose a taxonomy for robot morphology that takes into account the factor of religion. The taxonomy encompasses the novel concept of ‘theomorphic robots’, referred to robots that carry the shape of something divine.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)539-556
Number of pages18
JournalInternational Journal of Social Robotics
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Design
  • History
  • Religion
  • Social robots

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