The Religious and the Robopocalypse

Catholic astronomers and even Pope Francis have talked about how the Catholic Church could theoretically welcome aliens from other planets into the religious fold. But believers of Catholicism and other world religions may sooner have to consider whether they would welcome human-like android robots working and living alongside humans. That potential future could prove particularly troubling in the minds of religious fundamentalists.

Religious fundamentalism seems to have some influence on believers’ attitudes toward humanoid robots, according to research by Karl MacDorman, an associate professor of human-computer interaction at Indiana University in Indianapolis, and Steven Entezari, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University. MacDorman and Entezari’s study of almost 500 college students found that religious fundamentalists tend to view human-like robots as being more creepy overall. That sensitivity to robot creepiness refers to a proposed phenomenon called the “uncanny valley”, first discussed by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in a 1970 essay, that describes the feeling of eeriness or discomfort related to robots or other figures that appear almost human.

MacDorman and Entezari propose that the uncanny valley phenomenon can consist of both culturally-conditioned feelings — such as Christian beliefs in humans being unique and set apart from robots and the rest of creation — and biologically-rooted feelings involving fear and disgust. They used that mindset to analyze their latest study that looked at the relationship between individual traits and sensitivity to the uncanny valley.

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