Personhood And Social Robotics

An exponentially growing industry, human robot interaction (HRI) research has drawn predominantly upon psychologists’ descriptions of mechanisms of face-to-face dyadic interactions. This book considers how social robotics is beginning unwittingly to confront an impasse that has been a perennial dilemma for psychology, associated with the historical ‘science vs. art’ debate. Raya Jones examines these paradigmatic tensions, and, in tandem, considers ways in which the technology-centred discourse both reflects and impacts upon understanding our relational nature. Chapters in the book explore not only how the technology-centred discourse constructs machines as us, but also how humans feature in this discourse. Focusing on how the social interaction is conceptualised when the human-robot interaction is discussed, this book addresses issues such as the long-term impact on persons and society, authenticity of relationships, and challenges to notions of personhood. By leaving aside terminological issues, Jones attempts to transcend ritual of pitching theories against each other in order to comprehensively analyse terms such as subjectivity, self and personhood and their fluid interplay in the world that we inhabit. Personhood and Social Robotics will be a key text for postgraduate students, researchers and scholars interested in the connection between technology and human psychology, including psychologists, science and technology studies scholars, media studies scholars and humanists. The book will also be of interest to roboticists and HRI researchers, as well as those studying or working in areas of artificial intelligence and interactive technologies more generally.

This volume offers eleven philosophical investigations into our future relations with social robots--robots that are specially designed to engage and connect with human beings. The contributors present cutting edge research that examines whether, and on which terms, robots can become members of human societies. Can our relations to robots be said to be "social"? Can robots enter into normative relationships with human beings? How will human social relations change when we interact with robots at work and at home? The authors of this volume explore these questions from the perspective of philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and robotics. The first three chapters offer a taxonomy for the classification of simulated social interactions, investigate whether human social interactions with robots can be genuine, and discuss the significance of social relations for the formation of human individuality. Subsequent chapters clarify whether robots could be said to actually follow social norms, whether they could live up to the social meaning of care in caregiving professions, and how we will need to program robots so that they can negotiate the conventions of human social space and collaborate with humans. Can we perform joint actions with robots, where both sides need to honour commitments, and how will such new commitments and practices change our regional cultures? The authors connect research in social robotics and empirical studies in Human-Robot Interaction to recent debates in social ontology, social cognition, as well as ethics and philosophy of technology. The book is a response to the challenge that social robotics presents for our traditional conceptions of social interaction, which presuppose such essential capacities as consciousness, intentionality, agency, and normative understanding. The authors develop insightful answers along new interdisciplinary pathways in "robophilosophy," a new research area that will help us to shape the "robot revolution," the distinctive technological change of the beginning 21st century.

This SpringerBrief is a computational study of significant concerns and their role in forming long-term relationships between intelligent entities. Significant concerns include attitudes, preferences, affinities, and values that are held to be highly valued and meaningful: The means through which a person may find deeply held identity, purpose, and transformation. Significant concerns always engage the emotions and senses in a way that simply holding an opinion may or may not. For example, experiencing a significant concern may provoke deep feelings of awe and wonder in a way that deciding what to have for lunch probably does not, even if the lunch decision involves a rich array of preferences and values. Significant concerns also include what Emmons has called ultimate concerns. The author builds upon this base by considering the hypothetical case of intelligence in androids. An android is defined as a human-like robot that humans would accept as equal to humans in how they perform and behave in society. An android as defined in this book is not considered to be imitating a human, nor is its purpose to deceive humans into believing that it is a human. Instead, the appropriately programmed android self-identifies as a non-human with its own integrity as a person. Therefore, a computational understanding of personhood and how persons – whether human or android – participate in relationships is essential to this perspective on artificial intelligence. Computational Modelling of Robot Personhood and Relationality describes in technical detail an implementation of a computational model called Affinity that takes the form of a simulation of a population of entities that form, maintain, and break relationships with each other depending upon a rich range of values, motivations, attitudes, and beliefs. Future experimentation and improvements of this model may be used not only to gain a wider understanding of human persons but may also form a preliminary cognitive model of the reasoning process of an android.

Robotic Persons will introduce the evangelical community to the journey of Robotic Futurism and how current and forthcoming AI-driven robots will impact human value and dignity. This book will consider three key areas of robotic development and the existential risks on the horizon for humans in the fields of work, war, and sex. There are risks in the fields of work, because there is a temptation to replace human workers with automation. Current arguments for the benefit of war fighting robots posit that these robots will eliminate war and the risk of war, but there is much more to the story. Arguments for sex and companion robots proffer that they will benefit the fringe community or help those who do not have a relative to care for them, but again there are many ethical and philosophical problems with these arguments. Robotic Persons not only introduces the reader to these issues, but also gives an evangelical response to each. There is presently no evangelical work addressing these critical issues. Robotic Persons will argue that granting legal personhood to qualified robots will further prevent dehumanizing use of robots and protect human dignity and value.

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly people? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease? The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects. Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.

The two-volume set LNAI 14453 and 14454 constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2023, held in Doha, Qatar, during December 4–7, 2023. The 68 revised full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 83 submissions. They deal with topics around the interaction between humans and intelligent robots and on the integration of robots into the fabric of society. This year the special topic is "Human-Robot Collaboration: Sea; Air; Land; Space and Cyberspace”, focusing on all physical and cyber-physical domains where humans and robots collaborate.

Social institutions emerge from social practices which coordinate activities by the explicit statement of rules, goals, and values. When artificial social actors are introduced into the physical and symbolic space of institutions, will this affect or transform institutional structures and practices, and how can social robotics as an interdisciplinary endeavor contribute to the ability of our institutions to perform their functions in society? This book presents the proceedings of Robophilosophy 2022, the 5th in the biennial Robophilosophy conference series, held in Helsinki, Finland, from 16 to 19 August 2022. The theme of this edition of the conference was Social Robots in Social Institutions, and it featured international multidisciplinary research from the humanities and social sciences concerning social robotics. The 63 papers, 41 workshop papers and 5 posters included in this book are divided into 4 sections: plenaries, sessions, workshops and posters, with the 41 papers in the ‘Sessions’ section grouped into 13 subdivisions including elderly care, healthcare, law, education and art, as well as ethics and religion. These papers explore the anticipated conceptual and practical changes which will come about from the introduction of social robotics into public and private institutions, such as public services, legal systems, social and healthcare services or educational institutions. Offering an exploration of the societal significance of social robots for the future of social institutions, the book will be of interest to both researchers in robotics and to those working in social institutions and enterprises.