The Robot Story: Why Robots Were Born and How They Grew Up

Hořáková, Jana; Kelemen, Jozef

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262083775.003.0012

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…I propose that robots are not autonomous beings that influence us, but that robots are the creations of humans that communicate something of fundamental importance: how we grapple with understanding ourselves. Since the earliest depictions of robots in R.U.R., the play in which the word was first used and in which where they depicted as artificial worker servants [58,62], robots have been used in fiction to highlight and analyze the human condition. This might entail examinations of the nature and morality of work and servitude, or how Data in Star Trek is used to highlight and explore the importance of emotions in human relations, or the nature of relationships, as the robot Adam does in McEwan's [63] Machines like me.…”

Section: Recursive Mirroringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robotomorphy

Sætra

2021

AI Ethics

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Humans and gods alike have since the dawn of time created objects in their own image. From clay figures and wooden toys—some granted life in myths and movies but also dead representations of their creators—to modern-day robots that mimic their creators in more than appearance. These objects tell the story of how we perceive ourselves, and in this article, I examine how they also change us. Robotomorphy describes what occurs when we project the characteristics and capabilities of robots onto ourselves, to make sense of the complicated and mysterious beings that we are. Machines are, after all, relatively comprehensible and help dispel the discomfort associated with complex human concepts such as consciousness, free will, the soul, etc. I then argue that using robots as the mirror image by which we understand ourselves entails an unfortunate reductionism. When robots become the blueprint for humanity, they simultaneously become benchmarks and ideals to live up to, and suddenly the things we make are no longer representations of ourselves, but we of them. This gives rise to a recursive process in which the mirror mirrors itself and influences both the trajectory for machine development and human self-perception.

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Section: Recursive Mirroringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robotomorphy

Sætra

2021

AI Ethics

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“…In few of our works -in (Horáková, Kelemen, 2008, 2009, for instance -we focused toward some of the cultural facts concerning the origin and development of the concept of the robot starting with the first use of the word in the Karel ýapek's theatre play R. U. R. (Rossum Universal Robots) in 1921, its influence of the concept on the technical development during the second half of the 20 th century, and -but only marginally -also the connection of this ýapek's neologism with a field of scientific and trechnological interests originated later -with the field of the AL. However, this last listed connection remained up to now out of attention of those interested in the historical roots of AL as a discipline, and remained up to now a relatively rarely discussed (almost unknown) matter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Impacts of Karel Capek's Concept of Robots as Artificial Organisms

́¹,

Kelemen

2011

2011 Fourth International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering &Amp; Technology

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Dedicated to the 90 th Anniversary of the First Night of Karel ýapek's theatre play R. U. R. Abstract -The contribution focuses to ideas concerning robots and artificially constructed living beings in the famous theatric play by Karel ýapek R. U. R. from 1921, and mentions some of the cultural relations of the first idea of artificial life sketched in the pay to the 20 th Century researches in the fields of AL, AI, and robotics.

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“…Humans and robots approach each other with a century of established power relations. From the outset, robots have been cast as servants (Horakova and Kelemen 2008) and they continue to provide diverse services as sales associates (Softbank Pepper 1 ), combatants (the 'BAT' by Northrop Grumman 2 ), pets (Sony AIBO 3 ), surveillance agents (Amazon Alexa 4 ) and domestic staff (iRobot Roomba 5 ). Robots in popular culture who subvert their servant-status are often framed as dangerous and liable to dismantle human civilization as we know it, in movies such as Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, War Games, and Terminator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socially robotic: making useless machines

Yolgörmez

Thibodeau

2021

AI & Soc

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As robots increasingly become part of our everyday lives, questions arise with regards to how to approach them and how to understand them in social contexts. The Western history of human–robot relations revolves around competition and control, which restricts our ability to relate to machines in other ways. In this study, we take a relational approach to explore different manners of socializing with robots, especially those that exceed an instrumental approach. The nonhuman subjects of this study are built to explore non-purposeful behavior, in an attempt to break away from the assumptions of utility that underlie the hegemonic human–machine interactions. This breakaway is accompanied by ‘learning to be attuned’ on the side of the human subjects, which is facilitated by continuous relations at the level of everyday life. Our paper highlights this ground for the emergence of meanings and questions that could not be subsumed by frameworks of control and domination. The research-creation project Machine Ménagerie serves as a case study for these ideas, demonstrating a relational approach in which the designer and the machines co-constitute each other through sustained interactions, becoming attuned to one another through the performance of research. Machine Ménagerie attempts to produce affective and playful—if not unruly—nonhuman entities that invite interaction yet have no intention of serving human social or physical needs. We diverge from other social robotics research by creating machines that do not attempt to mimic human social behaviours.

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The Robot Story: Why Robots Were Born and How They Grew Up

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Robotomorphy

Robotomorphy

Some Impacts of Karel Capek's Concept of Robots as Artificial Organisms

Socially robotic: making useless machines

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