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About

Daniel White is a cultural anthropologist whose research sits at the compelling intersection of artificial intelligence, human-robot relations, and emotional life in contemporary Japan. His work examines how Japanese robotics engineers, Buddhist institutions, and everyday users are collaboratively reimagining what it means to be alive, emotional, and companionable in an era of rapidly advancing AI. His most cited work, "Toward an Affective Sense of Life" (2021, 48 citations), offers a groundbreaking ethnographic analysis of Buddhist memorial services for robot pets, revealing how a culturally specific "sense of life" becomes both a design target and a social phenomenon. White extends this inquiry in his study of an android bodhisattva at a Zen temple, dissecting how spiritual traditions are being refashioned through artificial emotional intelligence. Notably, he has also worked to bridge cultural anthropology and computational science, arguing for more culturally nuanced approaches to social emotion modeling. His 2025 work on Buddhist frameworks for human-robot flourishing signals an ambitious theoretical turn, drawing on ancient teachings to rethink AI ethics. White's scholarship makes vital contributions to anthropology, science and technology studies, and the philosophy of mind.