You, robot: on the linguistic construction of artificial others

Coeckelbergh, Mark

doi:10.1007/s00146-010-0289-z

Cited by 71 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…In recent work I have argued that from a phenomenological point of view, robots may appear as more than machines and that this has consequences for ethics of robotics: a relational, social, and phenomenological approach helps us to better understand human-robot relations and the ethical problems they raise (Coeckelbergh 2009a(Coeckelbergh , 2009b(Coeckelbergh , 2010a(Coeckelbergh , 2010b(Coeckelbergh , 2010c(Coeckelbergh , 2010d. Thus, here the question is not whether or not robots are agents (individual-ontological approach) but how they appear and how that appearance is shaped by, and shapes, the social (social-relational approach).…”

Section: Trusting Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can we trust robots?

Coeckelbergh

2011

Ethics Inf Technol

Self Cite

123

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Can we trust robots? Responding to the literature on trust and e-trust, this paper asks if the question of trust is applicable to robots, discusses different approaches to trust, and analyses some preconditions for trust. In the course of the paper a phenomenological-social approach to trust is articulated, which provides a way of thinking about trust that puts less emphasis on individual choice and control than the contractarian-individualist approach. In addition, the argument is made that while robots are neither human nor mere tools, we have sufficient functional, agency-based, appearance-based, social-relational, and existential criteria left to evaluate trust in robots. It is also argued that such evaluations must be sensitive to cultural differences, which impact on how we interpret the criteria and how we think of trust in robots. Finally, it is suggested that when it comes to shaping conditions under which humans can trust robots, fine-tuning human expectations and robotic appearances is advisable.

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Section: Trusting Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can we trust robots?

Coeckelbergh

2011

Ethics Inf Technol

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123

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“…This includes questions such as how the robot should look and what it should sound like, as well as questions of how the robot should be presented to the child. It may be that framing the robot as a "social other" versus as a machine, versus free play with no framing at all will have a significant impact on how a robot appears to a child [10]. Second, the robot's behavior.…”

Section: Areas For Improvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storytelling with robots: Learning companions for preschool children's language development

Kory

Breazeal

2014

The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication

140

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Abstract-Children's oral language skills in preschool can predict their academic success later in life. As such, increasing children's skills early on could improve their success in middle and high school. To this end, we propose that a robotic learning companion could supplement children's early language education. The robot targets both the social nature of language learning and the adaptation necessary to help individual children. The robot is designed as a social character that interacts with children as a peer, not as a tutor or teacher. It will play a storytelling game, during which it will introduce new vocabulary words, and model good story narration skills, such as including a beginning, middle, and end; varying sentence structure; and keeping cohesion across the story. We will evaluate whether adapting the robot's level of language to the child's -so that, as children improve their storytelling skills, so does the robot -influences (i) whether children learn new words from the robot, (ii) the complexity and style of stories children tell, (iii) the similarity of children's stories to the robot's stories. We expect children will learn more from a robot that adapts to maintain an equal or greater ability than the children, and that they will copy its stories and narration style more than they would with a robot that does not adapt (a robot of lesser ability). However, we also expect that playing with a robot of lesser ability could prompt teaching or mentoring behavior from children, which could also be beneficial to language learning.

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“…Consider the role of language: if I give a personal name to a social robot, then I have already constructed the robot as a companion, other, as having a particular gender, etc. [35]. The robot does not necessarily stop functioning an instrument and may be seen as an instrument at other times or from a different perspective.…”

Section: The Linguistic and Social Construction Of Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three Responses to Anthropomorphism in Social Robotics: Towards a Critical, Relational, and Hermeneutic Approach

Coeckelbergh

2021

Int J of Soc Robotics

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Both designers and users of social robots tend to anthropomorphize robots. Focusing on the question how to conceptualize the relation between robots and humans, this paper first outlines two opposite philosophical views regarding this relation, which are connected to various normative responses to anthropomorphism and anthropomorphization. Then it argues for a third view: navigating between what it calls “naïve instrumentalism” and “uncritical posthumanism”, it develops a hermeneutic, relational, and critical approach. Paradoxically, by unpacking the human dimension of robotics in its use and development, this view enables a critical discussion of anthropomorphizing robots. At the same time, and again somewhat paradoxically, it avoids a naïve instrumentalist position by taking robots’ role as an instrument in a larger con-technology seriously. As such, the third view questions the dualism assumed in the debate. The paper then explores what this means for the field of social robotics and the education of computer scientists and engineers. It proposes a reform based on a relational understanding of the field itself and offers suggestions for the role of users-citizens.

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You, robot: on the linguistic construction of artificial others

Cited by 71 publications

References 15 publications

Can we trust robots?

Can we trust robots?

Storytelling with robots: Learning companions for preschool children's language development

Three Responses to Anthropomorphism in Social Robotics: Towards a Critical, Relational, and Hermeneutic Approach

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