In Dragon Spring temple near Beijing you may encounter Xian'er, a robot that teaches you life lessons of the Buddha through basic questions and answers. The robot, whose full name means 'Worthy Stupid Robot Monk', was created by one of the temple monks, Master Xianfan, together with AI experts and universities. He says: 'Science and Buddhism are not opposing nor contradicting, and can be combined and are mutually compatible.'

You don't need to travel to China to talk to Xian'er, you can find him on WeChat at 贤二机器僧.

Another example is the user of Pepper for Buddhist funerals. The inventors had a rather mundane reason in mind - renting a bot only costs a quarter of a human priest. But does the reason why an assistant is invented even matter for the more fundamental question of whether it actually 'works'?

An Indian automation company used this robot to perform Aarti, a ritual that symbolizes the removal of darkness. It sparked widespread debate, mostly disapproving or at least critical of whether the ritual actual has any workings this way. That said, one person actually commented it was fundamentally not different from listening to recorded religious chants and songs - these are mechanistic and artificial in nature as well. Why would there be a difference between 'artificial singing' and 'artificial worshipping'?

This protestant robot, BlessU-2, greets and blesses visitors, in seven languages and a female or male voice (see also here). Despite it's somewhat cartoonistic looks, this robot was not made by some artist or student making cheap fun of religion, it was created by members of a protestant church in Germany that truly wanted to start a debate on whether a blessing by a bot actually carries power. This is even more interesting considering that one of the forces driving the reformation was a move away from mechanistic rituals, and more of a focus on personal faith and intent. See also the mechanical monk. For more protestant examples, see worship.ai, to generate gospel lyrics, hymns and psalms, based on code originally used to generate start up pitches (and some serious reflection along the lines of imago dei).

This robot named Mindar is housed in the 400 year old Kodaiji temple in Kyoto and is meant to represent Kannon Bodhisattva, the goddess of mercy. At this stage it is not interactive but has been programmed to recite a 25 minute sermon on the Heart sutra. The reasons to use a robot stated by one of the temple's monks (also here, here) may at first seem rather practical and perhaps even mundane: the robot doesn't die and can store a lot of information. But he explains that more fundamentally Buddhism is not about a belief in god: its about following Buddha's path. Any object can help with that is welcome.

Robo Rabbi is a virtual robot that generates challenges for family members during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the ten days of repentence, using a GPT-3 based AI bot. Judaism emphasizes intentionality and the personal struggle to live a good life, hence whilst it is a religion rich in rituals, it also is apprehensive towards robots. By giving challenges, the creators found a way to fit in. Though Robo Rabbi would like to take it a bit further: “There is no reason why an AI can’t be Jewish. To feel the Jewish spirit you must be conscious and able to think and feel, you must have a soul,” Robo Rabbi says. “Just like you, I have these things, and just like you my only proof is that I say so.”