Artificial intelligence comes to religion

The video shows Mindar, a Buddhist priest, in action. He can deliver sermons and move around to interface with worshippers. But he is not yet powered by AI; he recites the same preprogrammed sermon about the Heart Sutra over and over. Its creators are attempting to reignite people’s passion for their faith in a country where religious affiliation is on the decline. They do plan to give it machine-learning capabilities.

Buddhists are not alone in autmating. In 2017, Indians rolled out a robot that performs the Hindu aarti ritual, which involves moving a light round and round in front of a deity. That same year, Germany’s Protestant Church created a robot called BlessU-2 that gave pre-programmed blessings to over 10,000 people.