Preaching warnings and robots in the field of trust – technology in business and the judiciary

By Luc Saint Pat / [email protected]

International research is trying to follow in the footsteps of computer inventions, indicating the impact they are having on various aspects of humanity. Considerations in the Study of Changes in Religions

If any aspect of the human world can be considered racial, it is faith. It is about the ability to place positive values ​​and beliefs on beings or ideals that are not materially expressed and cannot be perceived by the senses. Faith is, fundamentally, one of the best qualities of humanity, even its lights and shadows.

However, in times of technological advancement and rapid development of projects involving artificial intelligence, nothing is as it seems.

In this context, It is worth noting that there are already programs and humanoid robots trained in the ability to preach, and it is worth considering that there are studies on the level of events and reliability of these efforts for society.

For this reason, it is interesting to consider the findings of a study, the results of which were recently published in one of the journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

„As artificial intelligence expands into more industries, robot preachers and AI programs offer new ways to share religious beliefs, but they can undermine credibility and reduce donations to religious groups that rely on them,” explains a press release from the company. The results of the investigation are mentioned.

The article cited in the report is „Exposure of Robo-Preachers Undermining Religious Commitment” and was written by experts Joshua Jackson (University of Chicago); Kai Chi Yam and Ding Liu (both National University of Singapore); Bock Man Tang (University of Georgia Derry College of Business); and Azim Sharif (University of British Columbia).

„It seems like robots are taking over more jobs every year, but I don’t know that religious leaders will become fully automated because religious leaders need credibility and robots are unreliable,” Jackson said of the research results.

Three tests

To reach this conclusion, the research team conducted an experiment with a humanoid robot minder at the Gotai-ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan.

It is a prototype with a human-like silicone face in a metal body with movable lips and blinking eyes. Functionally, the humanoid robot delivers 25-minute sermons on Buddhist principles with surround sound and multimedia projections. By the numbers, Mindar was developed in 2019 by a Japanese robotics group in collaboration with Koil and cost nearly $1 million.

however, The performance of the device was not as expected as one could observe among other problems that people were donating less money to the temple than before its arrival.

“Researchers studied 398 participants who left the temple after listening to a sermon delivered by a mindar or a human Buddhist priest. „Participants found Minder less credible and made smaller donations than those who heard a sermon from a human priest,” the press release explained, giving an account of key data observed and collected by the researchers.

On the other hand, This was illustrated in another experiment at a Taoist temple in Singapore. Half of the 239 participants heard a sermon from a human priest, while the other half heard the same sermon from a humanoid robot named Pepper. In this case the results were similar. „The robot was seen as less reliable and encouraged smaller donations.”. „Attendees who heard the robot’s sermon were less likely to share its message or distribute flyers in support of the temple,” the APA report described.

Finally, in a third experiment, 274 Christian participants from the United States read a sermon online. Half of the participants were told that it was written by a human preacher, while the other half were told that the sermon was produced by a highly advanced AI program. As a result, those who heard the purported AI sermon reported it as less credible because they „felt” that the technology was less capable of thinking or feeling than a human.

Explanations

Regarding these results, On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most credible, Jackson and his collaborators scored the robot preachers an average credibility rating of 3.12, compared to 3.51 for the human preachers.

„This suggests that many people think robots can be effective teachers, but even more people don’t believe so,” said the academic who led the studies.

Even so, the researcher warned, “TheRobots and AI programs can’t really have any religious beliefs, so religious organizations could see their congregations’ engagement diminish. If they trust technology rather than human leaders who can express their faith.”