On the Robosphere: A Philosophical Explication of the Socio-technical Status of Social Robots

Abstract

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution advances, socially-situated robots are increasingly not exclusively human-like (i.e. humanoids). They also include socially interactive animaloids. How does this myriad of socially intelligent artefacts emerge as members of a cyber-physical social system in which they are accorded the standing of social robots? And how are we to account for the nature of the universe-of-meaning that emerges from this human-artificial social reality? Utilizing conceptual tools derived from the philosophical fields of phenomenology and “new materialism”, I proffer a theoretic account of robotic sociality. I postulate how robots become members of a cyber-physical social network that is cohabited with sapient humans. Two novel functional constructs are introduced in the process: “the humanoidic” and “the robosphere”. The former illuminates that spontaneous bestowal of sociality on robots is tantamount to a recognition of their social agency. I then demonstrate how this psychical process of the recognition of these humanoidic artefacts instantiates an emergence of a shared human–robot cyber-physical world of relational meaning-making, a robosphere. As a corroboration of the self-manifestation of the robosphere as a concrete social system, it is shown that Industry 4.0 adumbrates Society 4.0, a cybernetic social formation, and the envisioned advance of this into the more technocratic super-smart Society 5.0.