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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-happens-if-you-don't-welcome-your-new-robotic-overlords dept.

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]


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday August 25 2017, @03:02PM (2 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday August 25 2017, @03:02PM (#558884) Journal

    By that illogic

    It's not illogic.

    the universe COULD be run by a pair of magic alicorn sisters, or a flying plate of spaghetti, or the Great Green Arkleseizure that sneezed the universe in to existence.

    Sure. We don't know.

    So why isn't everyone performing all possible magical rituals to appease all possibilities?

    Because

    • There is such a large number of possible rituals that you cannot possibly do all of them, but would have to restrict yourself to a very small subset of all possible rituals. Which with high probability would be the wrong ones anyway.
    • Any ritual we do might just as well anger the gods as it may please them. So even if we could tell for certain that a specific ritual would have an effect on the gods, we still couldn't tell whether it is a good or a bad effect,so there's no point in doing them.
    • If whatever deity exists wanted us to do any rituals, it is a reasonable (although not certain) assumption that the deity would ensure that we know about it. So the fact that we don't know which ritual the Great Green Arkleseizure wants us to do makes it probable that whatever deity actually exists, doesn't want us to do any rituals for it.

    What makes those possibilities so much less probable than a single bearded sky man?

    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 YOU know?

    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.

    The universe is full of unknowns.

    Yes. And a reasonable person doesn't claim the unknowns don't exist just because they are unknown.

    The difference is I choose not to fill those unknowns with childish fairy tales.

    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.
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  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM (#559059)

    Nor do I, nor did I anywhere claim I do.

    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:47PM (#559065)

    md nails it - gj