Robotics and AI in the sociology of religion: A human in imago roboticae

Abstract

The next-generation of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) sets a new horizon of inquiry into the obvious and hidden significances of the secular techno-society. By incorporating the perspectives of STS (Science, Technology and Society) into the sociology of religion, this article attempts to explore the social-religious significance found in the emerging relationships between the human and Robotics and AI. By referring to several cases of Robotics from Japan and the US, this article examines three versions of the relationship, namely, the physical, the social and the psychological. Several concrete cases are referred to for each aspect: the robot suit, the robotic arm, and BMI (Brain Machine Interface) for the physical relationship; PARO, a seal-like healing robot, OriHime, and Pepper for the social relationship; and a conversation with artificial ‘personality’ such as Bima48 for the psychological relationship. For each of this kind of relation, the involvement on Sociology of Religion is discussed.

Introduction

With the arrival of the next-generation of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), a new stage of scholarly inquiry into the relationship between religion, society and technology is set. Robotics and AI have just started to exercise their influence upon societies. On 4 September 2015, Hitachi, a Japanese electronics company, announced that, by utilizing Big-Data, they had developed a type of AI which could provide adequate and necessary instructions to employees, thus achieving 8 percent efficiency ¹ . Since Robotics and AI are regarded as instruments of economic growth, their social impact has begun to materialize. On the other hand, some worry about the negative impacts of introducing Robotics and AI. For example, possible reductions in employment due to an introduction of Robotics and AI were announced in a recent report (Frey and Osborne, 2013). Besides this economic impact, there was another kind of negative comment as expressed by Stephen Hawking: ‘the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race’ (Cellan-Jones, 2014).

At the same time, the arrival of Robotics and AI stimulated a new intellectual topic called Transhumanism or Post-humanism in Western societies (Bostrom 2005; Braidotti, 2013; Hayles, 1999). Some studies address a spiritual dimension of these technologies (Bainbridge, 2006; Geraci, 2012). While Post-humanism is taken up as an issue of representational culture in Japan (Hyosho Bunkaron Gakkai, 2008), Japanese scholars of religion and sociologists of religion do not respond to the issue of the practical reality of Robotics and AI even though Japan is known for its advancement in Robotics. This lack of academic interest by Japanese scholars of religion and sociologists of religion seems to be related to their old-type concept of religion. Since it has been argued that there are obvious and hidden dimensions to meanings socially constructed with and conveyed through technology (Jensen and Blok, 2013), the author would like to tackle Robotics and AI as a new horizon for the sociological inquiry into the contemporary religious world, acknowledging the cultural differences in social perceptions of Robotics and AI.

In this article, in order to examine the social and cultural impacts of Robotics and AI upon the social formation of the sense of religiousness, attention will be paid to analysing and examining the implicit spiritual (Bailey, 2001) and symbolic dimension (Cassirer, 1944) of the emerging human-robotics relationship by referring to some of the ongoing developments from Japan and other places in constructive relationships between humans and Robotics and AI physically, socially and psychologically. It is my contention that what being mythical, religious and spiritual means for a human is now transforming with the rapid technological advancement of Robotics and AI, therefore, the broadest meaning of these terms is employed. Emphasis is laid upon both the mechanical designs and functions of Robotics and the experiential dimension of those who use them. It is sometimes difficult to obtain any personal information when Robotics are used for rehabilitation and medical purpose. Whenever there is enough information about the experiential dimension of the user, references will be made. Since there are diverse relationships between human and Robotics and AI, it is important to examine each different case while maintaining an overall view. Since there is no obvious social presence of institutional religions in the relationship between humans and Robotics and AI, it might be useful to remind readers that here religion means symbolic and cognitive dimensions of human activity (Geertz, 1973). There has been a scholarly discussion on the significance of designing and manufacturing humanoid robots. It might be useful to refer to Guthrie who claims anthropomorphism is the cognitive central source for forming religion (Guthrie, 1995), the human’s perception of a robot as a person could be religious. Furthermore, the latest development of Robotics and AI, digital cloning of personality, raises a new question concerning what constitutes a personality as far as being a human, thus, a new self-awareness of a human would be emerging. It seems that the day has come when humans think about themselves in imago roboticae.

The sociology of religion and STS (Science, Technology and Society)

The author’s position in this article is located between a sympathetic collaborator with Robotics engineers and an ordinary citizen trying to use robot technology. He is still involved in examining the social and ethical aspects of the social robot with a colleague in Robotics. As a scholar of religion, studying Robotics and AI in the realm of sociological study of religion is risky and adventurous where most scholars are ‘traditionally oriented’, that is they (including the author) do research centring on the traditional notion of religion. The simple fact that Clarke’s recent The Oxford handbook of the sociology of religion has neither chapter on nor reference to Robotics and AI (Clarke, 2009) shows how difficult it is for a sociologist of religion to work on this topic. Therefore, it is necessary to attempt to configure a balanced bridge between a framed sociology of religion and STS (Science, Technology, and Society) to examine the socio-religious significance of Robotics and AI (Bauchspies et al., 2006).

A brief review of the intellectual background for this article would be useful. As next-generation robotic technologies were developing, a group of Robotics engineers began to pay attention to ethical issues concerning introducing Robotics technologies into society. In 2004, the First International Symposium on Roboethics was held in Sanremo, Italy, the main figure of which was Dr. Gianmarco Veruggio who coined the term Roboethics (Veruggio, 2006). In Europe, Roboethics is a forum where a variety of scholars from different disciplines including engineers, sociologists, philosophers and theologians discuss related ethical, social and cultural issues. Its main concern is the ethical and moral questions that have been raised (Arkin, 2009; Wallach and Allen, 2009; Anderson and Anderson, 2011; Kimura, 2014). It is difficult to circumscribe religious dimensions in newly developing technology, simply because they are not yet socialized into major parts of social life. Therefore, the majority of society would not grasp the subtle significance. Especially as there is no ‘obvious religion’ in the relationship between Robotics with AI and societies.

In the post-modern and global society, social, secular and spiritual borders of significance are blurred and liquid (Bauman, 2011), and explicit and implicit meanings are no longer certain (Bailey, 2001). Divisions between humans and Robotics and AI will be liquid and blurred. In this vein, it is useful to remember that there are lots of secular elements in religions such as political, economic, scientific and even technological while there is something religious and spiritual in politics, economics, science and technology (Strassberg, 2005).

In light of the above argument, Robotics and AI are seen to reveal two contradictory and complimentary issues, that is, the most advanced technology and the traditional notion of personhood in their relationship to the religion and society. Technology has never been a central issue for the sociology of religion, simply because it is regarded as not belonging to the realm of religion. While the sociology of religion has centred on modernity and its accompanying social effects, such as secularization and demagicalization since Weber, technology itself, which brought them, did not receive enough attention. Technology is the material reality of modernity, and technology has been regarded as an opposite pole against institutionalized religion. Today, as STS becomes recognized as an important scholarly genre, technology occupies an important material location in constructing social reality. Compared to the internet and media which became an object of the sociology of religion when they became ubiquitous in everyday life, Robotics and AI are not yet incorporated into every corner of society. Nevertheless, the impact of Robotics and AI will be expected to be tremendous enough if their promised technological achievement is realized, therefore it is necessary to examine them as the social and symbolic presence of religious valence.

Following Cassirer (1944) and Geertz (1973), modern and postmodern persons remain symbolic while technology, sustaining rationality and modernity, could be regarded as representing a core symbol of modernity. Robotics and AI are a completely new sort of technology, that is, a technology where human design and manufacture would control a human society (Barfield, 2015). It is no longer just modern technology with which humans as the main agents utilize the natural resource for their own sake, but is technology beyond modern, the post-human technology (Braidotti, 2013).

To locate Robotics and AI in the sociology of religion, it is important to incorporate the perspectives from STS. Both the social and cultural roots or social shaping of technological design and manufacturing and their respective socially and culturally evaluated acceptance have to be taken into account. (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999). Besides engineering knowledge and designing, engineers and mechanical designers are under the influence of their cultural aesthetics, they design and construct culturally-appropriate designs. In the same manner, the author once argued that robot suits or a similar robot technology could be utilized for quite different purposes depending upon cultural, political and personal contexts (Kimura, 2011). Social evaluation and significance of a similar and same robot technology could be done based on cultural contexts while it is necessary to pay attention to cross-cultural dimensions since many technologies are also transmitted beyond national and cultural borders. Therefore, while acknowledging that such diverse Robotics and AI are now being introduced into societies beyond cultural and national boarders, it is important to take both cross-cultural and social perspectives into each different Robotics and AI in different locations.

Besides these techno-social aspects, there are religious dimensions, too. For example, Geraci notes different cultural attitudes and assumptions as to cultural evaluations and social acceptance of Robotics between Japan and Western society (Geraci, 2006). Geraci emphasizes the underlying animistic attitude toward machines among the Japanese. There might not be any similar animistic attitude toward machines in Western societies, but the Greek myth of Pygmalion and the Jewish myth of Golem could be remembered in this context. Therefore, a mythic significance of Robotics and AI might be more an appropriate designation in discussing their impacts.

For analytical purposes, I examine the relationship between Robotics and human society at three different levels; physical, social, and psychological. I will use the concept of hybridity to point out a situation describing an interrelationship of human and Robotics and AI here becoming hybrid. The concept of hybridity was employed by several scholars to designate hybrid cultural conditions (Bhabha, 1994; Burke, 2009). Here the concept of hybridity points out the emergence of the possible new condition for the human society to be fused with machine, Robotics and AI (Cohen, 1994) and what sort of a new ‘personhood’ is emerging in the post-human condition (Hallowell, 1955).

Below, I will take up three different relationships between Robotics and AI and humans in society by examining several cases from Japan in each category. Since most sociologists of religion are not familiar with the development of Robotics, an emphasis is laid upon describing how these Robotics and AI function for the machine–human relationship, followed by some brief examinations.

Physical relationship of the human body and Robotics

Body is one of important questions for both sociological and anthropological studies of religion in the last several decades (Turner, 1984). Body is also the locus of religious experience. While these important scholarly works focus on a human body as an intersection of nature, society and culture, they didn’t pay enough attention to a historical transition from a cultural body to dawn of the techno-body. The hybrid physical relationship of a human body and Robotics is a new social condition where a new sense of being physically religious or physically mythical emerges.

The author has conducted his study on social and cultural issues of the next generation Robotics and AI, first, with an interdisciplinary group of Cybernics, the leader of which is Yoshiyuki Sankai ² , an inventor of HAL^® (Hybrid Assistive Limbs), a robot suit, at the University of Tsukuba, from 2008-2012. HAL^® is a robotic limb that responds to the electric signals from the brain when a person walks and which moves smoothly coincidently along with a moving leg. HAL^® is employed for rehabilitation purposes and also for heavy manual labour. For rehabilitation purposes, HAL^® is now employed in several EU countries. Sankai does not explicitly express any transhumanist ideas, but occasionally expressed his ‘progressive’ view of a human being from Homo Sapiens to Homo HAL^®, a human enhanced by advanced robot technology to transcend physical limitations.

There are many positive cases of HAL^® the author has heard, yet only a few cases are mentioned here to illustrate how hybrid physicality would assist humans. Since HAL^® was originally designed to assist a person carrying heavy items, there was once a case in which a person assisted with HAL^® carried a middle-aged man with paralyzed limbs to the top of a mountain. Nowadays, HAL^® is used at many rehabilitation institutes in Japan. A person who suffered from infant polio and could not move one leg put on HAL^®, and managed to walk on two feet without using a stick. A middle-aged man who had suffered a stroke began to use HAL^® for the purpose of rehabilitation; he was soon after released from the hospital and recovered almost normally. Similar robotic technology has been invented by several other Japanese companies such as Toyota, which is famous for its ASIMO, and Active Link, which is a part of Panasonic and which planned to sell its assist suit called AWN-03 in September 2015 ³ .

While these robot suits and similar technologies are attached to the body, bionic arms and legs are to supplement the amputated limbs, for example, bionic arms and legs for American soldiers who lost their limbs on the battlefield. At the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the Centre for Bionic Medicine’s goal is ‘to improve the function and quality of life for individuals with amputations and other physical disabilities’ ⁴ . Several videos on the RIC’s homepage show how these individuals learn to move their robotic arms and legs. Similar bionic and robotic arms and legs are designed and invented in other countries. These bionic arms are controlled by the brain ⁵ . A study of how these persons who use bionic and robotic limbs would feel in the long term still needs to be done.

These bionic and robotic arms and legs are not only technologically intriguing, but also suggest the obvious and implied significance of human bodily function. The technology could support bodily functions and replace bodily parts that the brain would control and move. The picture of the human body with a robotic part reinforces the mechanical and material view of the human body. So, in the end, the body is a machine.

What is the point of referring to these cases while there is no explicit religion? Compared to organ transplants, which have led to heated discussions with scholars of religion since they have an obvious reference to human life, the robot suits, bionic arms and so on, rather point out the material and social functions of a bodily part. In this connection, it is interesting to remember that in the 1980s and 1990s, the body was one of these main scholarly hot topics as though the human body were the last nature which human artificiality could not touch. Now, Robotics restructures the natural body by attaching its robotic technology to it and, by doing so, enhances the weakened bodily functions and restores the lacking bodily functions. An image of the strengthened natural body with Robotics gives an impression that Robotics develops the potential of the natural body. Robotics helps the natural body go a step beyond its natural limit.

There are further technologically advanced cases in which paralyzed patients could control and use a separate robotic arm with BMI (Brain Machine Interface) or BCI (Brain Computer Interface) device. One of a few notable cases is from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Rehabilitation Institute. There have been many discussions on technological, ethical and physical issues regarding applying BMI (BCI), including a case in which a patient chose an invasive device in order to maintain QOL (Quality of Life) despite possible contamination. (Hasegawa, 2008; Kawato, 2010; Nicolelis, 2011; No wo Ikasu Kenkyukai, 2007). What is interesting is a suggestion concerning how the mind could utilize and move an artificial arm with BMI (or BCI) beyond the physical limit of one’s body. In the above case, BMI (or BCI) is used for a medical and welfare purpose, yet its possible implication for expanding our view of the mind and consciousness is alarmingly enormous.

The difference between when a person ordinarily uses and moves his/her body and when a paralyzed person moves a robot arm with BMI (or BCI) just by thinking implies that, if technology makes innovative progress in the future, the mind or consciousness would be able to control and use a highly technological artificial independent body with BMI (or BCI) as though it were a separate mechanical avatar. There is already such a BMI technology, and it existed even in 2006 ⁶ . In 2009, Honda Research Institute demonstrated that their BMI enabled a human user to control and move ASIMO just by thinking. A person wears a headset with electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) sensors, and just imagines moving his hands and feet, and ASIMO makes a corresponding movement.

While these cases are mainly focused on body movement, other neuro-engineering studies have been done on the artificial sensory devices including vision, hearing and touching. For example, as to restoring the sense of touch with prosthesis for neurologically impaired patients, DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program with Applied Physics Lab (APL) announced that they had developed a prosthetic arm with the sense of touch, a sense of temperature and a sense of vibration in 2006. Similar attempts have been made by medical and neural prostheses experts in the US and Europe, for example, by Dustin Tyler, a biomedical engineer, at Cleveland FES Centre and Case Western Reserve University in Ohio ⁷ . What Tyler said is interesting. ‘What is fascinating about this [a bionic hand] is the perception of touch occurs in the brain, not in the hand itself’. His remarks need to be examined with caution, yet invoke questions concerning functions and quality of body’s presence regarding a brain’s relationship to a body. Tyler is talking about the brain function of the grown-up adult. On the other hand, it is known that learning to use one’s hands is crucial for a brain to develop (Kubota, 2010). Several studies point out the importance of emotional social interaction for children’s brains to develop well. Therefore, it is hasty to conclude that it is only the brain that senses and feels something external.

In this section, several cases of the hybridity of a human body and Robotics are examined. Hybrid relationships between the human body and Robotics are advancing from HAL^® to BMI (or BCI), and then separation of mind and robotic body also emerges in the case of ASIMO controlled by BMI. HAL^® is regarded as something for assisting a person’s physical ability, supplementing and enhancing remaining physical abilities. In the case of a bionic arm that is substituted for an amputated bodily part, a person uses it as if it were their own arm with a little training. Interestingly enough, these two different examples strengthen the mind-body dualism, yet also point out the primacy of mind and consciousness as a mover of a bodily part, and strangely enough, a body, a bodily part, or material parts as a resident locus of mind and consciousness, too. HAL^®, ASIMO, BMI, Prostheses Arm and so on are asking humans to reflect what and where the mind is.

There is also a hidden mythic, if not religious, dimension. These technologies themselves are just material things, which function as part of a physical living body by becoming incorporated with and merged into a human body and brain. On the other hand, a human body ceases to be natural by being incorporated with this machine technology, even in cases where an employed technology would enhance the ability of a human body (Greguric, 2014). Borders of a natural body and material technology become fused and blur, reminding us of the myth of Pygmalion where there was divine intervention. This time, it is an intervention of human intelligence.

Social relationships between social robot and human

Since a human society is both communal and religious (Durkheim, [1912]1995), how does the presence of a social robot change its religious dimension? How does a communicative social robot alter, expand, enhance and transform its religious dimension? What is new about a hybrid robot-human social relationship? This section will examine these questions by referring to several examples from Japan.

Social robots are designed and constructed by Robotics engineers to communicate with different groups of people, such as young children, school children, family members, elders and dementia patients. Depending upon what kind of group of people will have a communicative relationship with social robots, different kinds of mechanics and different kind of artificial cognition are sought. Cynthia L. Breazeal’s word is at the point here: ‘In short, a sociable robot is socially intelligent in a human-like way, and interacting with it is like interacting with another person’ (Breazeal, 2002: 1). Sometimes, it is an engineer’s initiatives that determine what sort of function and mechanism social robots acquire. For the sake of discussion in this section, I will take several cases of the social robots, namely Paro, Edutainment Robot and OriHime mainly from Japan.

Paro, a seal-type therapeutic robot, is globally known for its healing and therapeutic effects upon elderly persons, cancer patients, especially dementia patients and Alzheimer patients ⁸ . Paro has five kinds of sensors: tactile, light, audition, temperature and posture sensors. Paro is small, covered with artificial fur. Paro started its life in Japan, yet soon expanded into other parts of the world. More than 3,500 units of Paro are now used around the world. In 2002, Paro was certified as the ‘World’s Most Therapeutic Robot’ by the Guinness World Record organization. In 2015, Paro was awarded ‘2015 Patient’s Trophy’ by The Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) after Hospital Paul-Brousse, the University of Paris, and AIST jointly tested Paro’s therapeutic function with elderly patients in France to see if they would need less medicine by using Paro ⁹ . Paro is therapeutic for the elderly, especially those with dementia (Sabonavic, 2013). Paro does not utter any human words, walk, sing or do any exercise. Paro responds by blinking, moving and swinging its body, and uttering a seal’s cry.

It is interesting to note that Paro, unlike a real animal, usually expresses emotional facial expressions, indicating feelings such as happy, amused, smiling, a little worried, and so on. In a sense, Paro exhibits mild human facial expressions without any anger, wrath, sadness, crying, or surprise. Paro exhibits only these facial expressions since it is supposed to calm elderly people with dementia and cancer patients. A sense of touching soft fur also contributes to its therapeutic effects. In a sense, Paro does not have any complicated and very advanced Robotics technology. This point is very interesting when it comes to assessing the social importance social robots would have. Paro, without any complicated technology, is recognized as having a ‘healing’ effect upon elderly persons.

Another robot which does not have a complicated technology but exercises a positive social effect by connecting a person to a person is the communication telepresence robot, OriHime by Ory Laboratory in Tokyo. OriHime was invented by Kentaro Yoshifuji. OriHime, with a weight of only half a kilogram and a height of about 23cm, is small and light enough to be carried around, and does not have any AI function, but only simple functions of visual camera, microphone, speaker and motors moving the head and arms. Originally OriHime was designed to give a sense of connection to a patient or a person who has to stay alone and feels lonely. The social design for OriHime is based upon Yoshifuji’s personal experience of loneliness. When he was in elementary school, he was hospitalized and stayed at a hospital alone for a long time. He was lonely, and wanted to meet his friends. His memory of being lonely prompted him to design and construct OriHime which is mainly used to offer social connection.

In April 2015, I visited the office of Ory Laboratory. In Yoshifuji’s office, I enjoyed communicating with a person through OriHime. Yoshifuji then revealed me that this person was a young man lying in a hospital bed, half paralyzed due to an injury he suffered when he was six years old. With OriHime, he could experience the social world beyond his physical and social limitations ¹⁰ . I did feel socially connected with him via OriHime, too. New possibilities are opened up for this physically-challenged person by very simple robot technology. Now Yoshifuji is expanding what he can do with OriHime gradually. There are several cases that ALS patients use OriHime to connect with their family. A young school girl who stopped going to school for four years began to use an OriHime situated in her place in her classroom and communicated with her classmates via OriHime. Eventually, she could go back to school and now commutes to school normally.

In a society like Japan, where traditional communities are broken and where individuals feel separated from others, these Robots with simple technology could offer some social help which humans could not do. In this regard, OriHime functions as a new social technology to enable people who are separated spatially for physical reasons or social reasons to feel socially reconnected.

There is another kind of a social robot issue, the Edutainment robot. An experimental study of Edutainment social robots among humans has been done by a colleague of the author, Fumihide Tanaka, a Robotics scholar, whose research was on the social and emotional effects of robots among young children at a nursery (Circourel et al., 2007). With educational cooperation, he observed how young infants interacted with a robot figure. To his surprise, young infants learned to help a weak robot. They helped the robot, for example, by lifting it up from the floor and putting a blanket over it at nap time. Tanaka emphasized that a robot plays the role of being taken care of by toddlers, while at the same time assisting teachers, too. Criticism was raised by Noel Sharkey, who thought that Tanaka was experimenting with a situation where the robot took care of young infants (Sharkey, 2008). Tanaka and I wrote a response, explaining that Tanaka’s research was not intending for a robot to take jobs away from nursery teachers, as Westerners often feel worried about possible job loss due to the intervention of robot technology, nor would the robot take care of infants (2010). It seems that Sharker accepts our explanation.

In Japan, there was a recent experimental study in which an elderly person (either living alone or with their spouse) was asked to keep a social and communication robot at home for a certain period, and they were asked for an interview or to report what they thought about it later (Okada and Matsumoto, 2014). The focus of the study was on how a human user felt about using a robot on a daily basis. In many cases, these elderly persons recognized these robots as robots, yet enjoyed their company. Since the intelligence level of these robots was still very basic, the robot did not acquire any personality traits. There is a necessity to examine what sort of social and emotional effects other kinds of social robots would have on not only elderly users, but also other ages.

In 2014, Softbank, a Japanese Tel-Communication company, announced that they would sell a humanoid robot called Pepper, a humanoid communication robot that is capable of doing emotionally appropriate mutual exchanges with humans. Pepper was originally designed and manufactured by Aldebaran (formerly a French company bought by Softbank, also known for its NAO). In June 2015, Softbank began to sell 1,000 units of Pepper. Within one minute, all 1,000 units were sold out (Middlehurst, 2015). With the introduction of Pepper, the social presence of a communicative robot at home has become a real issue, at least in Japan (Okada and Matsumoto, 2014). It is necessary to investigate how family members would continue to develop their relationship with Pepper emotionally and intellectually for a long time. For example, a family reported that the presence of Pepper helped conversation among the family members, indicating that it played an assistive role in enhancing social interactions at home. When a social life at home becomes partly depending upon the presence of a social robot, emotional and psychological aspects need to be addressed. Yet, such a concern has just begun to arise. The issue awaits future study.

The social robots I referred to in this section have different purposes, such as therapeutic, edutainment, and social. These types of social robots open up new opportunities by transforming a social relationship into a fruitful human and Robotics relationship. With Paro, an elderly person feels healed and calmed. With OriHime, a patient who could not move can reach out beyond the physical limitation of his confinement. With Pepper, a family member can enjoy conversation and exchange information at home. These social robots offer an invaluable assistance that a human could not. With them, they know that a human can go beyond their physical and social limitation.

Interestingly enough, these other-than-human robots become socialized with a human community, not only by smoothing social relationships but also by restoring social relationships. These robots could be seen as new symbols for constructing social community which humans alone could not achieve.

Conversation with artificial personality

A human relationship with AI poses interesting religious and mythic questions regarding what the human mind is and how the human mind works. In the section above discussing the mind-body duality reflected in BMI and bionic arms, superiority of power of mind and consciousness is still guaranteed. Yet, in discussing what AI means for a human community, even though it is artificial, we cannot help but recognize the power of AI. Connected to the Internet, AI could be a mechanical resource of knowledge and emotional support. Will AI become intellectually and emotionally dependable for a human community; becoming religiously attached?

In 2005, Ray Kurzweil predicted that in 2045, AI would exceed human intelligence, thus achieving the singularity (Kurzweil, 2005). Though there has been debate concerning the accuracy of Kurzweil’s vision, the technological progress of AI is fast and remarkable. As Deep Learning or Deep Neural Network has recently become a hot topic among Robotics engineers and AI scholars (Matsuo, 2015), popular expectation also rises, though professionals are much more cautious. In 2014, the AI Ethics Committee was initiated by the Japanese Association for AI to discuss some ethical implications of the singularity. At the moment, it is not known whether or not the singularity Kurzweil means would come to realization, but what is a more important issue now is that AI with deep learning begins to exhibit some traits of personality.

When we talk about ‘personality’, usually we understand that a person develops their personality through their life-experience and interaction with others and their social environment with some genetic traits. In this regard, Minoru Asada’s study of a baby robot at the Emergent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University is interesting. Asada has attempted to reconstruct the epistemological development of human cognition with a baby robot. He is interested in analysing, designing and reconstructing a processual development of human cognition by creating a baby robot mechanically (Asada, 2010). As a part of Constructive Developmental Research, he explains how a baby’s intellectual capacity grows and how a baby learns to see the world.

Probably, considering the speed and diversity of Robotics and AI introduction into societies, a learning machine with a random element and a child machine would appear (Turing, 1950). For example, Apple’s SIRI and Microsoft’s Cortana, both personal vocal-assistants for human users, can develop some kinds of conversation, the question and answer dialogue, and do some intelligent assistance on the internet for a human user. It seems that though there is something unnatural about their artificial conversations, a human user and either SIRI or Cortana can exchange some sorts of ‘intelligent’ verbal communication. They do not have to be ‘perfectly’ personal. Nobody expects pets to act and behave perfectly according to human’s expectation. The point is that a human user can have ‘quasi’ personal communication with their machine embedded with AI, in this case, a Smartphone.

There are several cases of attempts to construct an artificial personality. In 2009, Jong-Hwan Kim of the Robot Intelligence Technology Laboratory at KAIST created a virtual Artificial Creature ‘Rity’ that can learn and change its behaviour ¹¹ . Rity is a two-dimensional creature on a computer, with a three-dimensional AI robot, which can learn with Deep Learning system. Little by little, learning AI through interacting with a human user is emerging. Whether or not they would acquire certain kinds of personality is an interesting question, yet needs some more time.

There is a totally different approach to constructing Artificial Personality such as Digital Cloning. An idea was not necessarily new since it is found as early as the 1970s in the literary forms, SF, and movies as Hayles discusses (Hayles, 1999). The core idea is that information is personality. Therefore, what will be referred to here is rather a material form of the idea. Terasem Movement Foundation (TMF)’s Bina48 is such a development. All available information concerning a woman named Bina was collected, uploaded onto and stored in the computer thus became embodied. Bina48 is an innovative trans-humanism project in Vermont.

The case of Bina48 is taken up as an extreme case of artificially constructed ‘personality’ today with whom a human person will communicate and interact. Then who is an artificial person and who is a ‘natural’ human person? TMF’s project is to investigate two hypotheses ¹² .

1. A conscious analogue of a person may be created by combining sufficient detailed data about the person (a ‘mindfile’) using future consciousness software (‘mindware’)

2. Such a conscious analogue can be downloaded into a biological or nanotechnological body to provide life experiences comparable to those of a typical human.

Bina48 might represent the first aim with some success, yet needs some more technological refinement. At the moment, it is simply enough for our purpose to recognize that Terasem’s project is to upload personal information and dates into an AI and recreate its original human personality. What is important is that this experiment raises the question about what constitutes personality or personhood. If a similar digital clone like Bina48 could be a social partner for an elderly person at home, then, what sort of relationship is emerging between a human person and an AI person? As Hallowell already raises the issue of personhood and the notion of person-other-than- human in the mid-twentieth century (Hallowell, 1955), AI personality or a digital cloning represents an artificial person-other-than-human. In and through conversation with AI personality, humans start to understand the concept of ‘human’, getting to know oneself through a mirror of AI personality, too.

Terasem’s project has a bodily dimension in a negative way. Marshal Brain argues that one of Terasem’s project aims is to upload personal information and data into AI and discard bodily and physical dimensions. Brain refers to the case of Christopher Reeve, an American actor famous for his role as Superman, and who fell off a horse and became quadriplegic (2005). Terasem’s project overestimates the importance of verbally constructed consciousness and treats consciousness as independent information separated from body and physicality. It is necessary not only to be surprised to see the latest technological advancement but also to critically examine the implicated philosophy or even culturally-biased views of human, too.

Nevertheless, the Terasem’s project, Bina48, represents a new phase of a conversational relationship between a human and an artificial personality. While it is a project of digital cloning of a real persons’ personality, there is also concern over what personality AIs with Deep Learning or artificial neural network will form and construct in terms of their relationship to a human society. By bringing the advanced Robotics and AI into the social circle, society is also transforming itself into a sort of post-human society, where an artificial personality represents itself as a ‘person-other-than-human’ embodied in Robotics to a human society.

With a perspective into a possible job-loss caused by introducing AI in the near future, there is already debate as to what AI will actually do, and what sort of job will be retained for humans to do. If ever AI would begin to teach any knowledge and subjects to children and grown-ups, AI appears superior to the majority of humans, even though AI itself was originally created by a group of human agencies. There would be more chances in which humans begin to think about themselves in relation to what AI does. In the post-human condition, no longer in imago dei, but in imago roboticae, would a human begin to see themselves?

Conclusion

In this article, I attempted to examine a newly developing social relationship between humans and Robotics and AI at three levels, bodily, social and psychological, in order to examine three different kinds of relationships between humans and Robotics and AI by introducing the topic of STS into the sociology of religion. It is probably too early to make any conclusive remarks concerning the social and cultural impacts of Robotics and AI on human society. Yet, these cases would have an impact on many other areas unexpectedly like a butterfly effect. It is important to examine and discuss some implied and hidden significances of the advanced technology even in the sociology of religion.

With the arrival of these advanced Robotics and AI, the questions concerning the location of humans are mounting. It is useful to ask if the concept of post-human is appropriate or not, to characterize the features of the social and religious conditions into which human societies will be thrown. Examinations of the hybrid relationships of human societies and many kinds of Robotics and AI show that they open up a new possibility for some groups of people, for example, those whose physical condition is limited due to injury or sickness. Is it not equivalent to a miracle for some? For some kinds of people, daily conversation with an artificial personality might be more beneficial than being alone and lonely, considering it is possible for some elderly people to spend all day without talking to anybody in an urban metropolis. Then, a question for the sociology of religion is to ask what sort of religiosity would these people in a post-human condition form and exhibit, perhaps without acknowledging that it is their religion.

With the advent of various kinds of Robotics and AI, human societies would be more designed and constructed with their dependence upon what these technologies can do. While it has been recognized that technology changes the way people practice religion, it could also be discussed if the technological development transforms concepts of religion, myth and spirituality. Does new technological innovation allow a new form of religion and myth to emerge? As a society that is rapidly changing due to technological development, sociology of religion needs to develop a new perspective to inquire what sort of new religiosity or new spirituality is being formed, that would be difficult to be approached with an existent definition of religion. Especially, more and more, people began to think about themselves in terms of what Robotics and AI can do. Robots and AI are no longer fictional items found in movies, animations and theatres. The practical and material presence of robots and unseen intelligent power of AI will demand human societies to wonder why they exist and how they are constructed. There are many important yet undiscovered issues regarding what Robotics and AI will mean for human societies that sociology of religion needs to venture to explore.