A research and development group led by Professor Seiji Kumagai of KyotoU's Research Institute for the Future of Human and Society (IFoHS) and CEO Toshikazu Furuya of Teraverse Co, Ltd has announced the overseas launch of its BuddhaBot-Plus (English version). Powered by the latest version of ChatGPT (ChatGPT-4 at the time of the program’s publication; ChatGPT o1-mini at the time of this press release), the AI will be made available to monks in the Kingdom of Bhutan through collaboration with the country's Central Monastic Body.
The group's previous projects include the non-generative Buddhist dialogue AI "BuddhaBot" (announced in March 2021), its advanced generative AI version "BuddhaBot-Plus" (July 2023), and the augmented reality (AR) technology "Terra Platform AR Ver1.0" (September 2022). Each program has attracted international media attention and generated strong demand for public release. However, the group has refrained from making the technology publicly available, awaiting an official request from the Buddhist community.
Following an official request from the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan, the R&D group has now initiated a project to deploy BuddhaBot for the country's monastic community. This initiative will include the development of a dedicated system and the implementation of a comprehensive risk management study. The developed system will undergo independent monitoring by monks from the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan and a rigorous safety assessment process before granting access to the broader Buddhist community.
