As synthetic intelligence expands throughout extra professions, robotic preachers and AI applications supply new technique of sharing non secular beliefs, however they might undermine credibility and scale back donations for non secular teams that depend on them, in line with analysis revealed by the American Psychological Affiliation.
“It looks like robots take over extra occupations yearly, however I would not be so certain that non secular leaders will ever be totally automated as a result of non secular leaders want credibility, and robots aren’t credible,” mentioned lead researcher Joshua Conrad Jackson, PhD, an assistant professor on the College of Chicago within the Sales space Faculty of Enterprise.
The analysis was revealed within the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Normal.
Jackson and his colleagues performed an experiment with the Mindar humanoid robotic on the Kodai-Ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. The robotic has a humanlike silicon face with transferring lips and blinking eyes on a metallic physique. It delivers 25-minute Coronary heart Sutra sermons on Buddhist rules with encompass sound and multi-media projections.
Mindar, which was created in 2019 by a Japanese robotics workforce in partnership with the temple, price nearly $1 million to develop, but it surely is likely to be decreasing donations to the temple, in line with the research.
The researchers surveyed 398 members who had been leaving the temple after listening to a sermon delivered both by Mindar or a human Buddhist priest. Individuals seen Mindar as much less credible and gave smaller donations than those that heard a sermon from the human priest.
In one other experiment in a Taoist temple in Singapore, half of the 239 members heard a sermon by a human priest whereas the opposite half heard the identical sermon from a humanoid robotic known as Pepper. That experiment had comparable findings — the robotic was seen as much less credible and impressed smaller donations. Individuals who heard the robotic sermon additionally mentioned they had been much less prone to share its message or distribute flyers to help the temple.
Whereas members mentioned they believed human preachers had been extra credible, it was nonetheless a detailed contest with the robots. On a scale from 1 to five, with 5 being most credible, the robotic preachers acquired a mean credibility score of three.12, in contrast with 3.51 for human preachers.
“This implies that there are lots of people on the market who suppose robots may very well be efficient preachers, however there are extra individuals who aren’t satisfied,” Jackson mentioned.
Whereas the robotic preacher research targeted on Jap religions, Jackson believes the findings may apply to different religions.
A 3rd experiment included 274 Christian members from the US who learn a sermon on-line. Half of the members had been advised it was written by a human preacher whereas the opposite half had been advised the sermon was generated by a extremely superior AI program. Individuals within the AI sermon group reported the sermon was much less credible as a result of they felt an AI program had much less capability to suppose or really feel like a human.
“Robots and AI applications cannot actually maintain any non secular beliefs so non secular organizations may even see declining dedication from their congregations in the event that they rely extra on expertise than on human leaders who can show their religion,” Jackson mentioned.
