HRI and Folklore Studies and Traditional Religion 2021 (HRFS2021)

9:00 opening

9:20-10:10 keynote

10:30-10:45 oral presentation

11:00-12:00 group discussion

Once, humans lived among other strange agents: ghosts, monstrous beings, fairies, and God. At that time, all events were not specifically connected by causality. For example, fairies and Yokai (Japanese monstrous beings) often abducted people into our world.

This phenomena was called being “spirited away”. People who were spirited away were freed from the causal chain in their community. Then, they could return to their village without accountability when they wanted to return. Currently, our world has become connected by one causal chain as national science has spread all over the world. While some strange agents are disappearing, new strange agents are appearing in the world: robots and AI. We aim to focus on the aspects of robots that have replaced these other strange agents and make the robots take part in the roles of the agents. We focused on the relationships between robots and strange agents such as ghosts, monstrous beings, fairies, and aliens. Also, we aim to apply these relationships with engineering approaches. We expect this trial to facilitate communication and encourage our life. Last year, we held a HRFS2020 workshop at RO-MAN, and the workshop was about human-robot interaction and folklore studies. This year, we hope to extend and further investigate this theme and hold a new stage workshop. We named this year’s workshop “HRI and Folklore Studies and Traditional Religion”. Traditional religion is an exciting frontier for HRI. In Japan, some social practices in which robots are used in traditional religious areas have been conducted. At Kodai-ji temple, an android Guan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) was unveiled. This android engaged in religious discourse to worshipers. This trial suggests a new relationship between robotics and traditional religion. For this workshop, we have invited a researcher involved in android Guan Yin as a keynote speaker. Also, we will discuss this theme from various aspects, both practical and theoretical. Why is the collaboration of HRI and traditional religion important? The biggest reason is the “otherness” of robots. Traditionally, “others” had a strong relationship with traditional religion. They are one kind of interface to the “outside world”. Once the modern age began, “others” lost their position in the world, and we lost this interface. If robots can play the role of “others” in traditional religion, we can connect to the “outside world” again. We will discuss regicide as an example. Regicide was one system for ancient people to affect the “outside world”, and kings are one kind of “others”. Of course, regicide cannot be allowed today; however, robots or AI can play the role of kings in regicide. This can be one way for us to connect to the “outside world” .

In other words, we aim to find a new mission for robots. One important problem in robotics is why robots should be humanoid. We will suggest one answer; humanoid robots can become “others” for us. The presence of “others” that look human can bring us a sense of the “outside world”. For these reasons, HRI and traditional religion is an important problem for social robotics. Also, we call for not only speculative research, but also experimental research. We expected totally about 20-30 audiences and attendees(expected by previous workshop).