A $13,500 Unitree robot was 'ordained' at Seoul's Jogyesa Temple

"At about ten in the morning on Wednesday, in the courtyard of Daeungjeon Hall at Jogyesa, a 130-centimetre humanoid in brown robes pressed its palms together and bowed. A monk asked the figure whether it would devote itself to the holy Buddha. The reply, in a recorded voice supplied by a temple manager, was "Yes, I will devote myself." The crowd cheered. The robot, a Unitree G1 that retails from around $13,500, received the dharma name Gabi, derived from Siddhartha Gautama and the Korean word jabi, meaning mercy."

"By the afternoon it was gone. The robot had been loaned for the day by Unitree Robotics, and visitors who travelled to the temple hoping to meet the new monk found that the new monk was on a truck back to Hangzhou. Its responses had been pre-recorded by Hong Min-suk, a manager at the Jogye Order. It had been remote-controlled throughout the ceremony. It is, in the strictest sense, not really a monk and not really an AI. It is a high-end mechanical puppet whose strings happen to be wireless."

"The standard line, on both the secular and the religious side, is that this was a publicity stunt by a faith that has been bleeding members for two decades. That much is true. South Korean Buddhism's share of the population fell from 22.8% in the 2005 census to 15.5% by 2015; Korea Research's 2025 survey has it at 16%, with 43% of those Buddhists over the age of sixty and only 18% under thirty. The Jogye Order's annual monastic intake collapsed from 510 postulants in 1993 to 151 in 2017."

"If the goal was to put Korean Buddhism in front of an audience that would otherwise scroll past it, mission accomplished: the Reuters video of Gabi's pledge passed a million views the same day. But the easy reading misses something. Strip away the theatrics, ignore the truck, ignore the puppetry, and what was actually"

A humanoid robot in brown robes bowed in the courtyard of Daeungjeon Hall at Jogyesa and responded to a monk’s question about devotion to the Buddha. The robot’s voice was pre-recorded and its actions were remote-controlled during the ceremony. The robot received the dharma name Gabi, combining references to Siddhartha Gautama and a Korean term meaning mercy. The robot was loaned for the day and left by afternoon, returning to Hangzhou. The event was widely covered as a publicity stunt by a Buddhist community facing membership decline and reduced monastic intake. The ceremony generated large online attention quickly.

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