{"schemaVersion":"1.2","articleId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori","locale":"en","canonicalUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/","articleVersion":"1.0.1","translationVersion":"1.0.1","release":{"releaseId":"2026-10-31.2","manifestUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-31.2/manifest.json","citationsUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-31.2/citations.json","publicRecordBundleUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-31.2/hieropedia-public-record-2026-10-31.2.tar.gz"},"claims":[{"segmentId":"s001","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s001","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s001","sourceHash":"d6e9b6da99524785","translationHash":"d6e9b6da99524785","excerpt":"Masahiro Mori and Buddhist robotics Person Masahiro Mori (1927–2025) Field Robotics and Buddhist thought Institutional setting Mukta / Jizai Research Institute Practices Engineering education and contemplative practice Key book The Buddha i","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s002","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s002","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s002","sourceHash":"a6020e9138b97cbc","translationHash":"a6020e9138b97cbc","excerpt":"Masahiro Mori’s Buddhist robotics was a body of writing, engineering education and contemplative practice developed by Japanese roboticist and lay Buddhist Masahiro Mori (1927–2025). It connected the Buddha-nature of manufactured machines w","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0004"]},{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://tricycle.org/article/robot-buddhanature/"]},{"referenceId":"ref-17","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-17","sourceUrls":["https://www.japancreativity.jp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025NL4%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B7.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s003","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s003","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s003","sourceHash":"a60d6a6a412bd8d3","translationHash":"a60d6a6a412bd8d3","excerpt":"The subject connects religious thought with robotics and, later, artificial intelligence. Much of its formative material concerns mechanical design and control systems. Mori’s account gives machines religious significance without requiring ","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://tricycle.org/article/robot-buddhanature/"]}]},{"segmentId":"s004","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s004","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s004","sourceHash":"1df637d969a568aa","translationHash":"1df637d969a568aa","excerpt":"The Mukta institute","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s005","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s005","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s005","sourceHash":"c099f9fb857c57a6","translationHash":"c099f9fb857c57a6","excerpt":"Mori dated the beginning of the Jizai Research Institute to 2 March 1970. In an undated interview for VITALITE , he described earlier Saturday gatherings where participants tried to loosen habitual ways of thinking. The problem, as he remem","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-3","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-3","sourceUrls":["https://www.tokibo.co.jp/pdf/vitalite/vitalite5int.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s006","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s006","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s006","sourceHash":"af7c20fa1f4d6b62","translationHash":"af7c20fa1f4d6b62","excerpt":"In an interview conducted in Tokyo in autumn 2009 and published in Gradhiva in 2012, Mori recalled an initial group of 28 people. Technical consulting helped pay the rent; brainstorming, Buddhist study and mechanical experiments coexisted. ","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-4","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-4","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.2393","https://www.galeriecharlot.com/media/press1521/le-bouddha-dans-le-r-galeriecharlot-ksi8j.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s007","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s007","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s007","sourceHash":"79e19dc13c1aaf89","translationHash":"79e19dc13c1aaf89","excerpt":"A separate participant’s recollection confirms the group’s interdisciplinary character. Writing in JAPIC NEWS in June 2009, pharmacist Fumito Tsuchiya described Mori inviting him, after university, to a monthly Saturday study meeting. Profe","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-5","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-5","sourceUrls":["https://www.japic.or.jp/service/whats_new/japicnews/pdf/JAPICNEWS09-06.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s008","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s008","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s008","sourceHash":"876bdf934cdff4ef","translationHash":"876bdf934cdff4ef","excerpt":"Frederik L. Schodt, who first interviewed Mori in spring 1986 and visited the institute around that period, provides another firsthand account. His later writing also cites Mori’s 2005 recollection of chanting the Heart Sutra in everyday si","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-6","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-6","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1017/S1557466020030673","https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62D0D4200F1582C0B7213D4BEBB4AF7A/S1557466020030673a.pdf/the-metaphysical-can-opener.pdf"]},{"referenceId":"ref-7","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-7","sourceUrls":["https://cdn.aaai.org/Workshops/2008/WS-08-05/WS08-05-005.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s009","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s009","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s009","sourceHash":"36f1d9dfc6dd7fb5","translationHash":"36f1d9dfc6dd7fb5","excerpt":"These activities gave Mori’s philosophy an institutional setting: a place where technical work, study and Buddhist practice could inform one another. They do not by themselves establish Mukta as a Buddhist denomination or a congregation org","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s010","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s010","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s010","sourceHash":"78011367e6c337ff","translationHash":"78011367e6c337ff","excerpt":"Books and the meaning of robot Buddha-nature","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s011","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s011","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s011","sourceHash":"4df737cd20b3dc61","translationHash":"4df737cd20b3dc61","excerpt":"Mori published Mori Masahiro no Bukkyō nyūmon , an introduction to Buddhism from an engineer’s perspective, in Japanese in 1974. The Buddha in the Robot: A Robot Engineer’s Thoughts on Science and Religion appeared in its first English edit","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-8","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-8","sourceUrls":["https://petit.lib.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp/24841/files/156368"]},{"referenceId":"ref-9","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-9","sourceUrls":["https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA5449206X","https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001511318"]}]},{"segmentId":"s012","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s012","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s012","sourceHash":"0209804f66f94377","translationHash":"0209804f66f94377","excerpt":"In Mori’s exposition, Buddha-nature extends to living beings, landscapes and manufactured objects. It is neither a component installed by an engineer nor a hidden organ within a body. His reasoning includes human makers and their products w","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://tricycle.org/article/robot-buddhanature/"]}]},{"segmentId":"s013","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s013","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s013","sourceHash":"3704f51185424d91","translationHash":"3704f51185424d91","excerpt":"Mori illustrated the relationship through ordinary controls. A driver makes a car move, but must also move hands and feet as the car’s controls require. A thermostat changes a room’s temperature while responding to that temperature. Pope an","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-7","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-7","sourceUrls":["https://cdn.aaai.org/Workshops/2008/WS-08-05/WS08-05-005.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s014","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s014","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s014","sourceHash":"856b77e53d43eec3","translationHash":"856b77e53d43eec3","excerpt":"The institute’s name expressed a related concern. Mori explained jizai through the relationship between acting as oneself and existing naturally, without an obstructive insistence on the self. In the VITALITE interview, he called humans nat","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-3","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-3","sourceUrls":["https://www.tokibo.co.jp/pdf/vitalite/vitalite5int.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s015","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s015","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s015","sourceHash":"655390411903ec61","translationHash":"655390411903ec61","excerpt":"His later language could be more provocative than the assertion that robots possess a potential for awakening. Takeshi Kimura’s 2015 study examines Mori’s statement in a 2014 book that robots are already enlightened, without the delusion th","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-8","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-8","sourceUrls":["https://petit.lib.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp/24841/files/156368"]}]},{"segmentId":"s016","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s016","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s016","sourceHash":"4435db73812ddcfd","translationHash":"4435db73812ddcfd","excerpt":"Making things and cultivating people","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s017","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s017","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s017","sourceHash":"0453dce3a5162b11","translationHash":"0453dce3a5162b11","excerpt":"Mori also interpreted engineering as a possible setting for Buddhist learning. In the 2009 interview, he compared concentrated making to a photographer becoming absorbed in the scene: the opposition between an observing self and an external","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-4","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-4","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.2393","https://www.galeriecharlot.com/media/press1521/le-bouddha-dans-le-r-galeriecharlot-ksi8j.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s018","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s018","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s018","sourceHash":"7ffeb12f4e048867","translationHash":"7ffeb12f4e048867","excerpt":"Robot contests supplied a particularly concrete example. Kimura describes Mori interpreting students’ immersion in designing and rebuilding machines as an experience of self-forgetting. Under the term gidō , or the way of technology, making","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-8","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-8","sourceUrls":["https://petit.lib.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp/24841/files/156368"]}]},{"segmentId":"s019","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s019","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s019","sourceHash":"fcb822f8f0c3c0a0","translationHash":"fcb822f8f0c3c0a0","excerpt":"Kimura’s 2018 analysis also explains Mori’s appeal to taiho , the backward step associated with Dōgen: temporarily turning attention inward instead of pursuing every problem through further external effort. Mori presented this as a resource","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0004"]}]},{"segmentId":"s020","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s020","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s020","sourceHash":"85d8b698303b269c","translationHash":"85d8b698303b269c","excerpt":"The uncanny valley and Buddhist interpretation","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s021","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s021","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s021","sourceHash":"0df58d97bec32f43","translationHash":"0df58d97bec32f43","excerpt":"Mori’s best-known contribution to robotics was the uncanny-valley hypothesis, introduced in 1970. It proposed that increasing human likeness would not produce a steady increase in affinity: an almost-human appearance or movement could inste","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-10","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-10","sourceUrls":["https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley"]}]},{"segmentId":"s022","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s022","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s022","sourceHash":"58a88624fcc2ac14","translationHash":"58a88624fcc2ac14","excerpt":"W. A. Borody’s 2013 study reads this design advice in relation to compassion and Mori’s criticism of attachment to the ordinary human ego. In Borody’s interpretation, reproducing human appearance is a questionable ideal when Buddhist practi","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-11","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-11","sourceUrls":["https://jetpress.org/v23/borody.htm","https://doi.org/10.55613/jeet.v23i1.4"]}]},{"segmentId":"s023","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s023","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s023","sourceHash":"51ecee81866e46bf","translationHash":"51ecee81866e46bf","excerpt":"Mori himself described the uncanny valley, in a 2012 interview, as advice to designers arising from his intuitions. The distinction matters: a proposal about human responses to appearance, a Buddhist account of reality and a claim about a m","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-18","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-18","sourceUrls":["https://spectrum.ieee.org/an-uncanny-mind-masahiro-mori-on-the-uncanny-valley"]}]},{"segmentId":"s024","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s024","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s024","sourceHash":"460cabadb94b9c1a","translationHash":"460cabadb94b9c1a","excerpt":"Kamide and the AI-era continuation","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s025","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s025","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s025","sourceHash":"babfa320f5d84004","translationHash":"babfa320f5d84004","excerpt":"The philosophy continued to develop through Mori’s collaboration with Hiroko Kamide, a social psychologist working on human–robot interaction. Their paper “One being for two origins — A necessary awakening for the future of robotics” was pr","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-12","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-12","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2016.7736248","https://kdb.iimc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/profile/en.e1c697bd392a9dbc.html"]}]},{"segmentId":"s026","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s026","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s026","sourceHash":"813fdcf74f4a7890","translationHash":"813fdcf74f4a7890","excerpt":"In a December 2016 interview, Kamide explained the program through good, bad and muki , a condition beyond that evaluative division. On her account, technology becomes beneficial or harmful through its human use; improving technical capacit","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-13","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-13","sourceUrls":["https://robohub.org/one-being-for-two-origins-a-new-perspective-on-roboethics/"]}]},{"segmentId":"s027","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s027","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s027","sourceHash":"655a1a5c948df850","translationHash":"655a1a5c948df850","excerpt":"In June 2018, Mori and Kamide published Robotto kōgaku to Bukkyō: AI jidai no kagaku no genkai to kanōsei ( Robotics and Buddhism: The Limits and Possibilities of Science in the AI Age ). The 512-page book organized their teaching correspon","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-14","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-14","sourceUrls":["https://www.hanmoto.com/bd/isbn/9784333027842"]}]},{"segmentId":"s028","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s028","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s028","sourceHash":"92382f065ab95a43","translationHash":"92382f065ab95a43","excerpt":"Critical reception","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s029","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s029","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s029","sourceHash":"fefea4562ac5d804","translationHash":"fefea4562ac5d804","excerpt":"Buddhist scholar Shigeki Moro contests treating Mori’s position as a general Buddhist answer to robot ethics. His 2020 study identifies affinities with the modern Buddhist thought of Nikkyo Niwano, founder of Risshō Kōsei-kai. Moro places M","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-15","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-15","sourceUrls":["https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/hualinc3.2_moro.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s030","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s030","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s030","sourceHash":"90a7d7d4bb53be44","translationHash":"90a7d7d4bb53be44","excerpt":"Moro’s central ethical objection concerns the beneficiary of respectful treatment. If machines are already free from delusion and humans respect them to improve their own spiritual condition, the human remains the beneficiary. The argument ","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-15","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-15","sourceUrls":["https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/hualinc3.2_moro.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s031","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s031","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s031","sourceHash":"a75381f6254efd6d","translationHash":"a75381f6254efd6d","excerpt":"Mori’s writings also resist reduction to one simple formula about machines lacking suffering. In his 2018 study, Kimura interprets another passage as contemplating whether a future robot with mindlike intelligence might need craving and suf","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0004"]}]},{"segmentId":"s032","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s032","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s032","sourceHash":"0890e7e2867c7fcd","translationHash":"0890e7e2867c7fcd","excerpt":"Legacy and relevance to artificial intelligence","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s033","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s033","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s033","sourceHash":"6242e0aa2c79c32c","translationHash":"6242e0aa2c79c32c","excerpt":"A 2020 volume by the Masahiro Mori Study Group, Monozukuri wa hitozukuri , collected accounts from eleven former students and associates, including people who knew Mori through Jizai. Its subjects included creativity, education and the rela","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-16","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-16","sourceUrls":["https://www.bookcellar.jp/product/detail/1237464"]}]},{"segmentId":"s034","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s034","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s034","sourceHash":"8be44e873813f679","translationHash":"8be44e873813f679","excerpt":"Mori died on 12 January 2025, aged 97. A memorial published by the Japan Creativity Society recognized both his engineering work and his contributions to creativity and Buddhist thought. [17] The sources assembled here do not establish Mukt","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-17","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-17","sourceUrls":["https://www.japancreativity.jp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025NL4%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B7.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s035","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s035","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s035","sourceHash":"846bae663fe1fa0e","translationHash":"846bae663fe1fa0e","excerpt":"His work has also been compared with later Buddhist robots. Schodt discussed the Heart Sutra -presenting android Mindar at Kyoto’s Kōdai-ji in relation to Mori’s ideas, while explicitly stating that Mori had no connection to that robot. Suc","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-6","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-6","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.1017/S1557466020030673","https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62D0D4200F1582C0B7213D4BEBB4AF7A/S1557466020030673a.pdf/the-metaphysical-can-opener.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s036","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s036","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s036","sourceHash":"90d10e169e1c8431","translationHash":"90d10e169e1c8431","excerpt":"For AI debates, the lasting distinction is between assigning religious significance to a machine and establishing what that machine experiences. Asked in the 2012 IEEE interview whether computers could acquire a mind, Mori expressed uncerta","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-18","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-18","sourceUrls":["https://spectrum.ieee.org/an-uncanny-mind-masahiro-mori-on-the-uncanny-valley"]}]},{"segmentId":"s037","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s037","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s037","sourceHash":"3020f5a3bfa04808","translationHash":"3020f5a3bfa04808","excerpt":"Mori’s contribution is most specific where it asks what technological work does to its human participants: how design disciplines attention, how powerful tools amplify intentions, and whether respect for artifacts can change the responsibil","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-13","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-13","sourceUrls":["https://robohub.org/one-being-for-two-origins-a-new-perspective-on-roboethics/"]},{"referenceId":"ref-15","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/#ref-15","sourceUrls":["https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/hualinc3.2_moro.pdf"]}]},{"segmentId":"s038","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s038","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s038","sourceHash":"2fa97693b70fa87b","translationHash":"2fa97693b70fa87b","excerpt":"See also","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s039","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s039","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s039","sourceHash":"26062aa264bf0e8f","translationHash":"26062aa264bf0e8f","excerpt":"Historical precursors to AI-mediated religion Robotic clergy Machine agency","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s040","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s040","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s040","sourceHash":"69824d3b0e70ca6a","translationHash":"69824d3b0e70ca6a","excerpt":"References","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/people/masahiro-mori/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s041","claimId":"hp:people:masahiro-mori:s041","anchor":"claim-hp-people-masahiro-mori-s041","sourceHash":"6b03b41bb85ee0d8","translationHash":"6b03b41bb85ee0d8","excerpt":"Takeshi Kimura, “Masahiro Mori’s Buddhist philosophy of robot,” Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics 9, no. 1 (2018): 72–81, especially 75–79. DOI and publisher record . Masahiro Mori, “Does a Robot Have Buddhanature?”, Tricycle , 21 Mar","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0004"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://tricycle.org/article/robot-buddhanature/"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.tokibo.co.jp/pdf/vitalite/vitalite5int.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.2393"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.galeriecharlot.com/media/press1521/le-bouddha-dans-le-r-galeriecharlot-ksi8j.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.japic.or.jp/service/whats_new/japicnews/pdf/JAPICNEWS09-06.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1557466020030673"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62D0D4200F1582C0B7213D4BEBB4AF7A/S1557466020030673a.pdf/the-metaphysical-can-opener.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://cdn.aaai.org/Workshops/2008/WS-08-05/WS08-05-005.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://petit.lib.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp/24841/files/156368"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA5449206X"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001511318"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://jetpress.org/v23/borody.htm"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.55613/jeet.v23i1.4"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2016.7736248"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://kdb.iimc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/profile/en.e1c697bd392a9dbc.html"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://robohub.org/one-being-for-two-origins-a-new-perspective-on-roboethics/"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.hanmoto.com/bd/isbn/9784333027842"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/hualinc3.2_moro.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.bookcellar.jp/product/detail/1237464"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.japancreativity.jp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025NL4%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B7.pdf"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://spectrum.ieee.org/an-uncanny-mind-masahiro-mori-on-the-uncanny-valley"}]}]}