Robot Therapists, Robot Ministers

by Rev. Peter E. Bauer

It’s 2030 and you are now retired. Your children have now grown up and have left the house.

You live with your partner and your dog. Financially, you are doing fairly well; however, you are concerned about health costs and especially with regard to avoiding medical emergencies. You have some friends that you visit, including some people at church.

You should be happy, but you still have a nagging sense of unease. Unsure what to do about all of this, you decide “Well, maybe I should see a professional to talk about this?” So you go online and you do some research. You find someone who sounds suitable. An appointment is made, and you show up at the office and here’s where it gets strange: There’s no human being in the office!

What an eerie feeling, sort of like watching an Alfred Hitchcock film, and you can ask yourself “Did I do the right thing by coming here ? “

It’s then that your provider arrives. However, they are not male nor female in human form. But instead they are a robot, sort of like the Star War’s C-3PO. The robot approaches you and extends its arm and hand and greets you.

“Good to meet you, Sir or Ma’am.”

You then notice that the robot has some buttons at the center of the chest area. The robot instructs you to press one of the buttons and you do.

You then hear the following message:

“Would you like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)? Press One.

Would you like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)? Press Two.

Would you like Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PET)? Press Three.

Would you like Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy? Press Four.

At this point, you become rattled. This is not what you were looking for nor what you needed. You then decide to cancel the appointment and you say to yourself “Well, I can go and talk to my minister. He/She will be able to provide the human touch.”

So you drive to the church. You haven’t been to church in quite a while and things have changed. You find a place to park in the big empty parking lot. You walk into the church office expecting to be greeted by the church secretary. But once again, there are no humans here.

You now really feel like that you are having a bad dream. There is a meditation bowl on the desk and you ring it with a small mallet.

All of a sudden, the door to the minister’s study opens and once again instead of a female or male appearing, it is a robot. The uncanny thing is that this robot, too, has buttons on its chest. You again press a button and you hear:

Would you like an Episcopal service? Press One.

Would you like a Presbyterian service? Press Two.

Would you like a United Methodist service? Press Three.

Would you like a United Church of Christ service? Press Four.

It’s all too much. You end up leaving the church office feeling like the man in Edward Munch’s painting, “The Scream.”

Whatever happened to being with another human being? Whatever happened to talking and listening and being heard and validated? Whatever happened to the warmth of a human handshake? Where did courtesy, recognition and appreciation go?

If you think that this is an improbability, think again. Right now, robots are serving coffee and tea to restaurant diners in San Francisco. Robots are also being utilized as companions for elderly who are in nursing homes located in Japan. We even are seeing robots being built that can serve as romantic companions for people. These developments are all beyond the pale of what we thought would be humanly possible. And yet, here we are, it’s the future.

I am not suggesting that we become Luddites or attempt “to build the bridge to the 19th Century,” but what I am advocating is that we find some way to keep humanity in the midst of the technology advances that we see happening before us.

Especially, how can we keep helping professionals — i.e., doctors, nurses, mental health providers, clergy — from becoming automatons ? How do we preserve the unique human encounter, as Martin Buber would say, how do we preserve the sacredness of the “I-Thou” encounter?

Theologies of Incarnation and Resurrection speak to this beauty of God, the divine becoming incarnate, living and breathing among us; and of Resurrection, of life continuing in new forms even after the cessation of human life.

Human life encompasses both incarnation and resurrections. Bob Dylan noted:

“ He/She who is not busy being born, is busy dying.”

There are many births and many deaths in our life.

May we use technology to see and appreciate the beauty of these realities and not be held captive by it in a mechanistic prison.

May it be so.