Social Robots: Boundaries, Potential, Challenges / Edition 1

by Marco Nørskov

Overview

Social robotics is a cutting edge research area gathering researchers and stakeholders from various disciplines and organizations. The transformational potential that these machines, in the form of, for example, caregiving, entertainment or partner robots, pose to our societies and to us as individuals seems to be limited by our technical limitations and phantasy alone. This collection contributes to the field of social robotics by exploring its boundaries from a philosophically informed standpoint. It constructively outlines central potentials and challenges and thereby also provides a stable fundament for further research of empirical, qualitative or methodological nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472474308
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/04/2015
Series:	Emerging Technologies, Ethics and International Affairs
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Marco Nørskov is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas at Aarhus University, Denmark. Furthermore, he is a cooperative researcher at the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories, ATR, Japan.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface. Part I Boundaries: On the significance of understanding in human-robot interaction, Julia Knifka; Making sense of empathy with sociable robots: a new look at the ‘imaginative perception of emotion’, Josh Redstone; Robots and the limits of morality, Raffaele Rodogno; What’s love got to do with it? Robots, sexuality, and the arts of being human, Charles M. Ess. Part II Potential: Ethics boards for research in robotics and artificial intelligence: is it too soon to act?, John P. Sullins; Technological dangers and the potential of human-robot interaction: a philosophical investigation of fundamental epistemological mechanisms of discrimination, Marco Nørskov; The uncanny valley: a working hypothesis, Adriano Angelucci, Pierluigi Graziani and Maria Grazia Rossi; Staging lies: performativity in the human-robot theatre play I, Worker, Gunhild Borggreen. Part III Challenges: Robots, humans, and the borders of the social world, Hironori Matsuzaki; The diffuse intelligent other: an ontology of nonlocalizable robots as moral and legal actors, Matthew E. Gladden; Gendered by design: gender codes in social robotics, Glenda Shaw-Garlock; Persuasive robotic technologies and the freedom of choice and action, Michele Rapoport.

Editorial Reviews

"This well-crafted collection of timely and thought-provoking essays investigates the opportunities and challenges socially interactive robots represent for us, our communities, and the collective human/robot future that is being assembled all around us. It is (or should be) essential reading for anyone - human or robot - seeking to understand the social conditions and configurations of the 21st century and beyond." - David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University, USA.

"The large-scale integration of social robotic technologies into our everyday life is a much-anticipated next step in the technological and human evolution. The collection of topics comprising this book provides the reader with an in-depth understanding of challenges and potentials of social robotics. It is a must-read for anyone interested in this field." - Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University, Japan

"It gives us a fresh perspective on social robots, prompting us to reflect on what it means to be human." - Migle Laukyte

From the Publisher