Humanoid robots as “The Cultural Other”: are we able to love our creations?

Mind Perception of Robots Varies With Their Economic Versus Social Function

“…With the rapid advancement of technology, robots are becoming increasingly intelligent and autonomous entities with the ability to fulfill a variety of tasks. Traditionally, such tasks have been restricted to the industrial setting in which robots were used for factory work, such as car manufacturing, building construction, and food production ( Bekey, 2012 ; Kim and Kim, 2013 ). Thus, robots were built mainly to achieve economic efficiency and financial profits for the corporate world (i.e., economic value).…”

“…Robots have long been perceived as non-human or a subhuman species, designed as a tool to serve our needs but not to deserve our respect and equal concern as our fellow human beings ( Friedman et al, 2003 ; Dator, 2007 ). This is mainly because they are attributed with only higher order cognition but not feelings and emotions (e.g., Haslam, 2006 ; Gray et al, 2012 ; Kim and Kim, 2013 ). In other words, it is the ascribed emotion and experience, but not cognition and agency, make a target deserve moral concerns ( Gray and Wegner, 2009 ).…”

Overcoming the uncanny valley: Displays of emotions reduce the uncanniness of humanlike robots

“…This association between humanlike robots and death may occur for several reasons: Firstly, humanlike robots are portrayed as threatening to humans in popular culture, both physically due to their super-human strength, as well as mentally [6]. Secondly, they may remind us of our creatureliness and associated mortality [7].…”

Robotic Art and Cultural Imagination

“…In recent years, there has been an ongoing debate about the notion and (possible) function of robotic culture. With the development of the new generation of drones, as well as the advancement in social and health robotics, questions about the robot culture seem to open a variety of discussions (Kim & Kim 2013, Samani et al 2013, Šabanović et al 2014, Koh et al 2015. Such discourses begin with the inquiry on how we can grasp the notion of culture 1 as an umbrella term for the range of habitual and technological practices, in relation to the equally heterogeneous field of robotics.…”