Alexander Huerta-Mercado

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

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About

Alexander Huerta-Mercado is a pioneering scholar at the intersection of robotics, theology, and cultural anthropology. His research fundamentally explores how religious traditions conceptualize and interact with artificial intelligence, particularly through the design and perception of robots. Huerta-Mercado’s most significant contribution is the introduction of the "theomorphic robot" category—machines designed to embody the form and identity of supernatural beings or sacred objects. This framework, detailed in his highly cited 2019 paper "Religion and Robots: Towards the Synthesis of Two Extremes" (67 citations), challenges traditional robot morphology classifications (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, functional) by proposing a divine-inspired design space. His 2018 work on design strategies for representing the divine in robots (17 citations) further elaborates how cultural and religious contexts shape robot appearance and acceptance. Huerta-Mercado also contributed a cross-cultural timeline of the history of thought regarding artificial beings, linking ancient mythologies to modern AI. By bridging theology and robotics, he has opened new avenues for understanding how spiritual beliefs influence human-robot interaction, making his work essential for researchers in human-robot interaction, AI ethics, and comparative religion.