Funeral directors and priests may no longer be needed.
As robots become more and more common in our everyday living, it is now possible that robots could eventually put funeral directors and priests out of work, according to The Guardian in “The future of funerals? Robot priest launched to undercut human-led rites.”
A company in Japan has developed a robot that can perform the rites of a Buddhist priest at funerals, for a quarter of the cost a human priest would typically charge.
If people start using the service, it is likely the idea will spread to other countries before too long.
However, it is not certain that people will accept religious functions conducted by a robot.
For now, no one needs to think about this for their own funerals.
Nevertheless, in the future, it might be one more thing elderly Americans need to think about.
The real question may turn out to be how comfortable are humans with using robots as a way to cut costs, even with funerals and religious functions.
