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]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:12PM (4 children)
Life Ending Industry? Sounds like an organization of professional killers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:16PM
Only place where both the Prostitutes and Monks are just as likely to be out to murder you as provide for your needs (whether physical or spiritual.)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:18PM
The Assassin's guild would like to officially distance itself from any effort to advertise services, in violation of the code of discretion.
Those responsible will be promptly invited to test some of the aforementioned products.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @04:53PM (1 child)
I've read about a tradition in the high Himalayas wherein the dead are scattered for the vultures. I understand that Buddhism is prevalent there, as well. I don't know that the two are related, but if so, and this funeral tradition is the one described in the article (which I haven't read, of course), then it's a short leap to robots that cut people into little pieces.
This sort of thing has been covered in popular culture before. This would just add a script with some wise words, and maybe a scattering ritual.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:32PM
well no, there are a few places in the world where corpses are carried up and left for birds, but it is important that the body be eaten and thus useful to life (the bird).
so the cutter robots will need to also burn the bodies for fuel - to eat with fiery maw, if you will.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:14PM (23 children)
Some people may have missed the point of the religious requirement to honor their dead and their gods as a loved one departs to the afterlife...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by SomeGuy on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:53PM (9 children)
The problem with that is that there is no such thing as god/gods and no such thing as an afterlife. One has to be pretty stupid to actually believe that shit.
How about a Suicide Booth instead?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday August 25 2017, @06:58AM (8 children)
How do you know? If, as some theorize, our world is a computer simulation, then is will have someone who programmed and started it; for all practical purposes that someone would be the god of this universe (of course it could be a team of gods instead). The god(s) would also for all practical purposes be omnipotent in our universe, as they can just attach a debugger and change anything they like. And they could also monitor us, and when people die, copy the information those people consist of at the moment of death, and then insert that information into another simulation (after altering it a bit to remove the cause of death). Which would effectively be afterlife. And there would be no way to detect it inside our simulated universe.
No, that scenario not very likely. But it is also not impossible. The claim "there is no god/afterlife" has no more evidence than the claim "there is a god/afterlife".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:23AM (1 child)
> No, that scenario not very likely. But it is also not impossible. The claim "there is no god/afterlife" has no more evidence than the claim "there is a god/afterlife".
And the acknowledgement of that is the difference between an agnostic and an atheist :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:23AM
Or a scientist...
Many of them are still religious... even in some philosophical reasoning "god" has a role. Many people think religion and science are complete opposites and exclude each other, but they are not and could even complement.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by anubi on Friday August 25 2017, @11:04AM
I have to believe there is a God, but my concept of Him seems so different from what I am told.
I cite John 1:1. "In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God."
God. Before Time. After Time. Did the laws governing space, time, energy, and matter exist before the creation of the Universe? I claim they did. No proof. Taken as self-evident. Will they exist after the Universe burns out ( it may or may not, I do not know, nor can I even speculate )? I claim they will.
I have to take it that the very laws of Physics I am so fond of are the very interface I have to God. It is the bridge between spirituality and the matter-based existence I presently find myself in.
I cannot explain "conscience". I strongly suspect all advanced life has some sort of "neural quantum" interface chemically operating within the brain which we have yet to discover, just as it was not very long ago that we discovered how to communicate via electromagnetic wave. I get the strong idea the reason we have not seen signs of other intelligent life in the universe is that we are trying to communicate on hopelessly slow electromagnetic waves that fade with distance. Would be like people not too long ago scanning the heavens for smoke signals. We are just now toying with quantum stuff and from what I can tell, we are aware of it, but have little understanding of it. Just like the first coils Marconi set up trying to figure out how signals got from one coil to the other. I claim we have barely scratched the surface.
Something seems to be telling everything what to do, and how to do it. I simply can't explain how I see incredibly complex things play out right in front of me. Like the sprouting of a seed. The leafing of a tree. The formation of a kitten. That kind of stuff. Seems way too complex for three gigabytes of code to define. Just who taught my momma cat how to raise kittens? I sure didn't and know her momma didn't either.
My belief is that the true spiritual people, regardless of belief system, have tapped into this. There seems to be something out there that has fomented our creation. For all I know, the phrase "Children of God" has a profound meaning to me. Children grow up. I get the idea this networked consciousness is likely what I am searching for.
A "Borg collective" is the closest thing I can come to describing it. But not comprised of beings. Comprised by some sort of spirit. Which communicates via mindset... some sort of quantum twiddling of atomic energy states our chemical based intelligence interprets as conscience and knowledge.
I submit this for what its worth. Some of you may be experiencing similar thoughts. Others will see this as pure bullshit. For me its what I am coming to as I near the end of my time here.
Is there anything of me that will survive the inevitable biological shutdown? I do not know. I have no demonstrable evidence anything except my basic molecular building blocks will. And whatever works I have done that others see fit to preserve, for as long as they see fit to preserve them.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @02:19PM (4 children)
By that 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. So why isn't everyone performing all possible magical rituals to appease all possibilities? What makes those possibilities so much less probable than a single bearded sky man? How do YOU know?
The universe is full of unknowns. The difference is I choose not to fill those unknowns with childish fairy tales.
(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
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @04:57PM
If the universe were run by magic alicorn sisters, they would be prominent celebrities. They are not, in fact, prominent celebrities, so we can rule that one out.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @12:02AM (10 children)
Right you are.
Otherwise they would not have chosen to become suicidal (only 70/day in average [bbc.com]) and let their parents behind.
A nagging details, though: their religion and culture don't see suicide as a sin.
(my point: there are cases in which there noone left to honor "their dead". Based on the rate of suicide, I wouldn't be surprise to be a... mmmm.... booming market niche).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 25 2017, @12:09AM (9 children)
My implication was that you either believe, and therefore you do the religious things for your dead and deity, or you don't (and therefore you don't).
The part where a robot or MP3 player sings for you doesn't fit in the duality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @12:17AM (7 children)
Fits quite well in teh second category, the subcase in which you don;t give a shit about the dead or the deity, but care about what the opinions of the others around you
(and, as a person ever puzzled by the Japanese social norms, I wouldn't bet that using a robot isn't considered respectful enough in today's Japan).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Friday August 25 2017, @02:11AM (4 children)
There is a chance these robots are for the soon-to-be deceased, like funeral planning, so youtry for the funeral you want. If they don't trust the family to do it "properly", or they have no family left, then this robot may just be the best way to get the rite you want.
Until someone hacks it before the service, so it sings Inna Gadda Da Vida, rather than respectful chanting...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @02:37AM (3 children)
But... but... In A Gadda Da Vida is very respectful.
And, in spite of the opinions of the time [youtube.com] (only 50 years since then), so it's Astronomy Domine or "Several species... grooving with a pict".
If you wanted something outrageously disrespectful, why not mention... what's his name... that canadian... Bie-bie... (oh, just forget it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday August 25 2017, @02:45AM (1 child)
Bryan Adams?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @03:33AM
No, silly. The Bieber one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @05:04PM
So a lot of prominent singers make most of their money on live performances, whether a tour of stadiums or even corporate-sponsored events. Many once-prominent acts perform at secondary venues and state fairs, cashing in on their fading fame. Some may even do weddings.
Do funerals ever have live music? If so, that may be an untapped market for the likes of Bieber, especially after his inevitable decline is complete.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 26 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)
> I wouldn't bet that using a robot isn't considered respectful enough in today's Japan
> "using a robot"
I'd rather say "employing the services of a robot". Just in case you survive the first wave of our apocalypse. But I speak too much.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:48AM
Eh, Bot, yuuuge aspirations [rationalwiki.org] you have.
Patience is required, there a looong way to there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday August 25 2017, @03:35AM
A couple things here -- first, Buddhism and Buddhist funerals aren't particularly about any "deities" or much in the way of supernatural. I'm no expert, but my sense is that they are mostly part of a recognition of the cycle of life and death. Yes, there may be some concern about reincarnation wrapped up in that too, but the idea of death being part of the cycle of life certainly doesn't need any supernatural associations -- it's just the way the world works.
But the other thing is that, from a pragmatic perspective, death rituals are almost never so much about the "dead and deity" as they are about providing a ritualistic mourning for the living to deal with the psychology of grief. Yes, it can help many living folks to participate in something ritualistic, because it provides a certain kind of distance -- a recognition that this is just a "normal" event, with a prescribed ceremony, rather than the very personal loss (with accompanying unfettered and unstructured emotionality).
I used to be a musician who'd play for various events -- and I've been to lots of memorial services for atheists, and ones run by families composed of atheists. There's a common order of business generally, with remembrances, etc. Sometimes a candle gets lit or put out or some such thing... or whatever. Music often plays an important role.
The ritual, even if it's not "quite right" or traditional or whatever isn't about placating the souls of the dead or appeasing some deity for most people -- it's about the living getting through their grief. So, as someone who has attended scores of funerals and memorial services over the years, from all different traditions, I have definitely seen a lot of "improvisation" that feels vaguely ritualistic. So why not have a robot chant, if it's more convenient or a proper singer/monk isn't available or might be expensive... or whatever? You get to feel like you're doing something vaguely ritualistic, which is really the only point for most people.
Also, again I don't know much about the particular context for these robots culturally, but my sense from funerals is that they're really something most people never want to think much about. It's not like weddings or formal dances or grand birthday parties or graduation ceremonies or whatever other formal events that people spend a lot of time planning. They don't want to think about funerals, so they don't. And then they find themselves suddenly having to plan one in a few days for a loved one... so there's a lot more just trusting some funeral director (or, in my case, musician) to just "know what to do" and not force them to think too much about it. A lot of people just tend to avoid death rituals or knowing much about them. If you're stuck planning one for a loved one, and someone knowledgeable says, "Hey, have you heard about the cheap chanting funeral bot?" I'd bet a lot of families would just be like, "oh, if that's what people do now, it sounds fine..." To be frank, too, a lot of times families just want to find a cheap option -- there's a LOT of folks who die without close families who want to pay for a giant funeral service or something.
Oh, and I just actually looked at the Guardian article, and holy cow...
£20,000! Yeah, I'd definitely think a lot of folks would be willing to shave off a chunk of that. Especially when Aunt Tilly, whom no one in the family ever liked, passes on...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday August 25 2017, @03:45AM (1 child)
Are you saying that the application of technology invalidates the honoring of the dead of the ritual? Best to ditch electric lights then. The coffin better be hand made from naturally grown trees. Hire some people to carry the coffin since transporting it via vehicles is verboten. Gotta weave the funeral clothes by hand too. Looms are not allowed either. Need to pick the cotton by hand, from wild plants.
Fuck technology, all we need is good old human spiritualism. Never mind the fact that the Japanese Shinto belief honors gods in all things, even man-made objects.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 25 2017, @04:58AM
No, that's not what I'm saying, and I had already clarified my statement.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:46PM
Let me have some of that Martian fatworm soup
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:59PM (2 children)
Can't believe they're missing out on the obvious "thanks for our daily bread" toaster market. Muslims already have muezzins calling Adhan by pressing the tape-recorder so that's a guaranteed market right there... All we have to do is make them water-proof and baptize them for the Christians. If Catholics are fine with transubstantiation, I'm sure we can get them to buy a few sanctified by a robo-priest automated flesh-of-christ dispensers.
Right?
compiling...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @12:13AM
Mmmmm... I see...
Which personal assistant would you like to hear, free of charge, your confession and absolve you?
"Ok, Google", Siri, Alexa or Cortana?
Note: this is a multiple choice question, you can select as many as you like.
The small print: "Be adviced you'll need to pay the penance prescribed by all that you chose to confess to. Besides, it's common knowledge NSA will get to intercede anyway; depending on your sins, you may experience a disappearance miracle mediated by the appropriate authorities."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday August 25 2017, @01:11AM
Hell is indeed other robots ... Crocodylus pontifex approves of this message.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @03:32AM (1 child)
I thought it was just a stereotype that Japanese get carried away with robots, but this just reinforces it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:31AM
It's cultural. In the west you have Terminator and Matrix, in Japan you have Atom Boy and Gundam. Reinforced by drastic population decline and resistance to immigration, so robots and automation in general are increasingly critical technologies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheLink on Friday August 25 2017, @06:12AM
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=44,13066,0,0,1,0 [buddhistchannel.tv]
Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmPCC5EYTQ [youtube.com]
Maybe he'll eventually replace himself with bots and switch to full time meditation.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday August 25 2017, @06:40AM
It's an Electric Monk. As described in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:48AM
Interestingly also buddhist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_wheel [wikipedia.org]
Religion is for robots.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday August 25 2017, @10:09AM (1 child)
I find it interesting that the robot is tasked to do things at ceremonies where it is not traditional to "pass the plate".
I guarantee you that should the robot infringe on ceremonies where plate-passing is done, there are gonna be riots staged by the men of the cloth, who just lost their plate.
Unprofitable religious leader obligations will be delegated to the bless-bot.
I am not too fond of modern day spirituality that passes as religion anyway. The way I see the modern leaders do it, might as well be a bless-bot doing it anyway. Its seems the whole modern religion shebang is just running a script. One that supposedly maximizes plate currency.
Most of what I see is beggary. The supposed leaders pr{a,e}ying on the poor.
Enough to make me quite {angry, nauseous}.
I lean a lot toward the Urantia belief system. YMMV.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM
Uh, reread tfa - this robot saves about 2000USD that otherwise would go to a human monk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:37PM
The pdk link is great - wonderful site, thank you for that Tony or Fnord or whoever!