By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff
A robot named Gabi made international headlines in early May when it underwent a public initiation ceremony to become a Buddhist monk. The robot joined the Jogye Order, South Korea’s largest sect of Buddhism, by participating in the Sugye and the Yeonbi.
The Sugye is a public initiation ceremony in which pledges promise to uphold the five precepts: do not kill, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie or become intoxicated. Gabi’s vows were slightly altered, and it instead pledged to respect life, live in peace, obey humans, be truthful and save energy. Rather than participating in the regular Yeonbi purification ritual and receiving a small incense burn, symbolizing hardship and lifelong commitment, Gabi received a sticker and a prayer bead necklace. It took its vows alongside many other new, human monks.
When interviewed by The New York Times, Hong Min-suk of the Jogye Order said, “Robots are destined to collaborate with humans in every field in the future. It will only be natural for them to be part of our festival.”
Gabi isn’t the first example of robots participating in human religious services, and it certainly won’t be the last. There are rosaries that pray themselves, robotic arms that give automated offerings to Hindu deities and more. In Beijing, a small robot named Xian’er, who resembles a cartoon Buddhist monk, wanders around a monastery stoking interest in and understanding of its creators’ faith. It responds to voice commands, plays traditional music, and recites Buddhist teachings and mantras. Unlike Gabi, Xian’er isn’t treated as a monk; he is an extension of and an interface for the temple.
Everyone, from believers to atheists, has an opinion on the incorporation of machines into faith, and each one is different. As robots, artificial intelligence and even Zoomed worship services become more prevalent, the question shifts from whether machines should coexist with religion to how they should.
The overlap of technology and religion is a large spectrum, and Gabi and automated rosaries are on opposite ends. Creating a machine to pray for you is in the same vein as AI platforms that claim to make “art.” It removes the emotional and spiritual connection, rendering the product meaningless: art is not art if it does not express the mind — the humanity — of its creator, and prayer is not prayer without belief.
Gabi, though, doesn’t take the place of a human intermediary or creator. It does not exist to serve or replace an integral expression of humanity on our behalf — if Gabi’s prayers are hollow, that only impacts itself. Gabi is rather like a teddy bear at a child’s tea party, given a seat at the table and treated with dignity and kindness as any human guest would be, able to fulfill goals for its own sake. Buddhism, especially, is a religion of introspection, and Gabi will seek enlightenment through meditation alongside its fellow initiates.
At its core, the two examples represent a fundamental difference: dehumanizing ourselves or humanizing others. One eliminates introspection, curiosity and exploration, depriving humanity of what makes our species beautiful and unique, and the other extends that spark of humanity to nonhuman entities, similar to how we anthropomorphize pets and, by extension, treat them better than their wild counterparts. It’s also an exercise of empathy: After all, if we can treat the cute robot as an equal, surely we can give our fellow humans the same grace.
There is no one right answer to whether or how technology fits into matters of faith, but Gabi’s spiritual journey — if you can call it that — raises pressing questions for modern religious thought. Can a being that’s programmed to worship ever truly have faith? Is that different from a human raised in a faith but never given the option not to follow it?
As this technology is forced on us, we must decide whether to shape it as an extension of ourselves, furthering our understanding of what it means to be human, or to give in to the founders of Grok and ChatGPT and surrender our humanity. Given the choice between a world of Gabis coexisting alongside us, and Groks replacing us, I choose the former.
