Introducing 'theomorphic robots'

As robots are going to spread in human society, the study of their appearance becomes a critical matter when assessing robots performance and appropriateness for an application and for the employment in different countries, with different background cultures and religions. Robot appearance categories are commonly divided in anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and functional. In this paper, we offer a theoretical contribution by introducing a new category, called 'theomorphic robots', in which robots carry the shape and the identity of a supernatural creature or object within a religion. Discussing the theory of dehumanisation and the different categories of supernatural among different religions, we hypothesise the possible advantages of the theomorphic design for different applications.