--- title: "People in Japan Are Worshiping a Cyberpunk-Looking Robot Goddess" description: "It's a strange, cyberpunk depiction of a robot goddess, with exposed aluminum actuators and electronics and an androgynous human-like face." date: "2019-03-05" modified: "2019-03-05" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/japanese-temple-cyberpunk-robot-goddess" categories: - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" tags: - "buddhism" - "Japan" - "religion" - "robot" - "the digest" --- # People in Japan Are Worshiping a Cyberpunk-Looking Robot Goddess ![It's a strange, cyberpunk depiction of a robot goddess with exposed aluminum actuators and electronics and an androgynous human-like face.]() *\Image: Kodaiji/NASA/Victor Tangermann\* ## Robot Goddess Monks at the ancient Kodaiji temple in Kyoto, Japan, recently gathered for a traditional ceremony in which they chanted and rang bells to a new statue of a deity named Mindar, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. But the statue isn't carved out of traditional stone or wood, according to a [new story]() by *The Diplomat*. Instead, it's a strange, cyberpunk depiction of a robot deity, with exposed aluminum actuators and electronics that its creators say is a new way of expressing spiritual belief in a technological age. ## Altar Ego The Kodaiji temple's leadership collaborated with local robotics researchers to design and build the 6'4" robot, which delivers a 25-minute sermon about the "[Heart Sutra]()," a Buddhist religious text. In an interview with *The Diplomat*, one of the researchers riffed on the idea that the robot goddess doesn't comprehend its sermon by pointing out that the same is true of many religious leaders. "Monks don’t discuss the true meaning of the Heart Sutra to worshippers; they just read it like poetry," Kohei Ogawa, a robotics professor at the University of Osaka who worked on the robot, told *The Diplomat*. "But this doesn’t work. The monks are like robots." ## Androgynous Android The Mindar android also bends gender, according to *The Diplomat*, with its human-like face and chest designed to evoke both male and female characteristics. "Everything depends on the person who is watching the robot," Ogawa told *The Diplomat*. "If someone wants to treat the android as a man, there will be some elements that represent a male form and vice versa." **READ MORE:** [An Ancient Japanese Shrine Debuts a Buddhist Robot]() \[*The Diplomat*\] **More on robot gods:** [*Way of the Future: A New Church Worships an AI God*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()