Atlas Obscura has an article on a robot programmed to perform Buddhist funeral rites.
What's the hottest new trend in robotics? It might be religion. Hot on the heels of Germany's Protestant-inspired automated blessing machine, BlessU-2, a Japanese company has unveiled a smiling automaton programmed to conduct Buddhist funerals.
Unveiled during the annual Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo, a funeral industry trade show, the little robot was presented by Nissei Eco Co. as an inexpensive alternative to hiring a flesh-and-blood monk. According to Reuters, the robot, a reprogrammed version of SoftBank Robotics' "Pepper" model of interactive humanoid automaton, can chant Buddhist sutras and beat a little drum to honor the dead. It can even livestream the service if needed.
Also at Reuters and The Guardian.
Youtube has a clip with the robot in action, which may give you nightmares. The robot in question is a reprogrammed SoftBank Robotics Pepper model. In related news it turns out Japan has a Life Ending Industry EXPO.
Once again Philip K Dick is proven right.
[Additional video clip by the New York Post. - Ed]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday August 25 2017, @03:02PM (2 children)
It's not illogic.
Sure. We don't know.
Because
Nothing. Why do you feel the need to bring a single bearded sky man in? Nowhere did I refer to a single bearded sky man (or to any other specific deity).
How do I know what? That I don't know whether or not there is a god? That's pure logic, even if you are apparently not able to follow it.
Yes. And a reasonable person doesn't claim the unknowns don't exist just because they are unknown.
Nor do I, nor did I anywhere claim I do. Maybe you shouldn't switch off your brain whenever someone dares to question your irrational belief that there is no god.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM
Then you badly need to work on your communications skills.
By challenging my statement any common person would assume your are asserting the opposite. Religitards love that argument of "how do you know?" because they eat up any trace of scientific uncertainty and use that to strengthen their own unsubstantiated beliefs. I've seen that more times than I care to think about.
Do you question every fact, theory, or opinion?
Someone posts "The sky is blue!"
You post: "Oh, how do you know?!? Have you gone outside and observed it at this moment? Oh, it's not the same color everywhere, you have to acknowledge that! Oh, its not really blue blue, its pedantically more of a pale blue! On other planets it is not blue! Citations needed and all that stuff!"
So your only possible purpose of posting is to troll. (Eh, and it has already been modded that way)
And yes, I pedantically SHOULD know better than to reply to such trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:47PM
md nails it - gj