Religion-related values differently influences moral attitude for robots in the US and Japan

Increasing evidences report that people show moral concern for robots, non-human entities. People’s attitudes toward new automation technologies such as robots and AI are influenced by their social backgrounds, including religion. Religion-related values, animism and anthropocentrism, has been recognised to be influential on preference/familiarity toward robots. However, how they affect moral care for robots under different religious tradition has not been studied. Here, we empirically examined how moral care for robots is influenced by religiosity and religion-related values with US and Japanese samples, cultures that are Abrahamic and Shinto-Buddhist traditions respectively (N = 3781). Overall, moral care for robots was higher in Japan than in the US, matching descriptions by previous authors. Moral care for robots was negatively associated with religiosity in the US and positively in Japan, although its variance was better explained by religion-related value than by religiosity itself. Further, moral care for robots had a negative association with anthropocentrism in the US, while, in Japan, it had a positive association with animism. The finding demonstrates how religious tradition could influence moral attitudes for robots, and might suggest the realm of moral consideration could be shaped by cultural traditions.