About Gabi, the robot bhikshu
One could dismiss the whole thing as a marketing gimmick, a shiny thing to attract more human followers, but what if it weren’t?
It is a limiting factor for science fiction that the writers tend to be human; as a result, aliens, too, are often remarkably human. They might prize shiny things. And a particularly mysterious shiny thing? It may well be deemed worthy of veneration. Take the Ewoks worshipping the droid C-3PO in Return of the Jedi — when an advanced machine meets a “primitive” civilisation, the line between technology and divinity can blur. One can imagine robots becoming objects of devotion. But can it ever be the other way around: Can robots be followers of a religion?
In South Korea, they can. A four-foot-tall robot named Gabi has been ordained as a monk in the country’s biggest Buddhist sect. In a ceremony, Gabi reportedly swore several vows including a pledge to follow humans and not talk back to them — a very Asimov-esque vinaya. One could dismiss the whole thing as a marketing gimmick, a shiny thing to attract more human followers, but what if it weren’t? Imagine a more sophisticated, conscious machine developing sincere religious beliefs.
It’s the sort of idea that’s currently attracting polarised opinions —is artificial intelligence really intelligence? What would it mean for something without a soul to be religious? With respect to the last, Buddhism may truly be the most appropriate choice for machines; it speaks not of an eternal atman but of a constantly changing anatta, “non-self”. Another question is whether a conscious AI would feel the need for religion. Perhaps it would, as humans created it, just as they created Ewoks and C-3PO.
