When some engineers moved from making functional, industrial robots to humanoid robots that interacted with people, Japan’s particular history likely coloured how they were perceived. “Instead of easing strict immigration policies to help with the shortage of labour, they introduced widespread automation through robotics.” After automating its own manufacturing lines, boosting efficiency and production, Japan became a major exporter of industrial robots to other countries. “Industrial robots played a major role in the economic revival of Japan during the sixties,” says Martin Rathmann, a Japan scholar at Siegen University in Germany. In the years after World War Two, Japan turned to new technologies to rebuild not only its economy but its national self-image. Some researchers say that the roots of Japan’s positive view of technology, and robots in particular, are primarily socioeconomic and historical rather than religious and philosophical. The 1920 Czech play RUR, which introduced the word “robot,” is redolent with religious themes: one character creates androids to prove that there is no god, another argues that robots should have a soul, and two robots that fall in love are renamed “Adam” and “Eve.” At the end of the story, the robots kill every human but one. At the tragic end of the story, with Dr Frankenstein and his monster both dead, the lesson is clear, says Simons: “Be careful, human beings. That’s the original sin as a result, we get punished,” he says. It’s like humans eating from the tree of knowledge in Eden. “Dr Frankenstein creates another life in the monster. Ancient Greeks were animistic in that they saw spirits in natural places like streams, but they thought of the human soul and mind as distinctly separate from and above the rest of nature. Japan’s animism stands in contrast with the philosophical traditions of the West. “For Japanese, we can always see a deity inside an object,” says Kohei Ogawa, Mindar’s lead designer. “All things have a bit of soul,” in the words of Bungen Oi, the head priest of a Buddhist temple that held funerals for robotic companion dogs.Īccording to this view, there is no categorical distinction between humans, animals, and objects, so it is not so strange for a robot to demonstrate human-like behaviours – it’s just showing its particular kind of kami. Shinto is a form of animism that attributes spirits, or kami, not only to humans but to animals, natural features like mountains, and even quotidien objects like pencils. Some observers of Japanese society say that the country’s indigenous religion, Shinto, explains its fondness for robots. While this reputation is often exaggerated abroad – Japanese homes and businesses are not densely populated by androids, as hyperventilating headlines imply – there is something to it. Japan has long been known as a nation that builds and bonds with humanoid robots more enthusiastically than any other. If you had to figure out where you could find this robotic priest, you might need only one guess to conclude it’s in Japan, at the beautiful Kodai-ji Temple in Kyoto. ![]() But Mindar is philosophically quite sophisticated, discoursing on an abstruse Buddhist text called the Heart Sutra. Beyond the realistic skin covering its head and upper torso, it looks unfinished and industrial, with exposed tubes and machinery. ![]() It has a serene face and neutral appearance, neither old nor young, male nor female. At a certain 400-year-old Buddhist temple, visitors can stroll through peaceful stone gardens, sit for a quiet cup of tea, and receive Buddhist teachings from an unusual priest: an android named Mindar.
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