According to the 2017 Gallup Poll, 79% of Americans self identify as religious, and they claim that morality is derived from religious affiliation. Of the six major religious affiliations, the top five include a priest or leader who guides the morality of the congregants through teaching and pastoral care. The function of a priest is to establish what is moral, ensure that the congregants live according to the moral code, and perform the sacred rituals found within the religious group. With the advancement of speech, robot, and artificial intelligence technologies, robots are replacing priests in some religious groups when a human priest is not available.
There are challenges that must be considered when determining the morality of using a robot to perform priestly functions. The robot does not make any moral judgments, nor can it. It cannot think, act, or move beyond what functions it has been programmed to perform. Because of the nature of artificial intelligence, the robot cannot perform a priestly function independent from what has been programmed by the programming team. Unlike priests who function as an intermediary between God and the religious group, the robot is an extension between the programming team and the religious group. Therefore, the morality of the robot is the result of the perception of morality of the individuals programming the robot. This makes the programmers function in the place of God, which contradicts many religious teachings that make a clear distinction between God the Creator, and humanity, who are created by God.
Another challenge is that robot priests have no way to hold individuals and groups accountable for immoral actions. Priestly functions include pronouncing blessings of an individual, discipling members of the group for actions that are counter to the moral teachings of the religious group, and pardoning the sins of group members. Each of these functions require the ability to discern what is moral. Right and wrong is rarely the result of strict application of guiding principles of sacred writings but a matter of interpretation by one who has deeply studied these texts. Therefore, there is a human element of thought and experience that influences a priest’s judgement to pardon, bless, forgive, or discipline. Again, a robot does not have the capacity to perform any of these functions.
Pepper, the priestly robot, is not the only priest that must be critically examined for moral implications. The human priests who perform funerals in Japan must also be critiqued. The cost of performing a funeral in Japan with a human priest is approximately $2,108. With a rising population of aging parents and grandparents, the children are left to pay for funeral expenses that are higher than they are able to afford. The funeral cost for Pepper the Robot Priest is approximately $440, almost ⅕ the cost of a human priest. If children of dying parents have to resort to a robot priest in order to eulogize their loved ones, then perhaps the question of immorality is not on the designers of a robot priest, but on the human priests who are charging too much for funeral expenses.