A fictional dualism model of social robots

Abstract

In this paper I propose a Fictional Dualism model of social robots. The model helps us to understand the human emotional reaction to social robots and also acts as a guide for us in determining the significance of that emotional reaction, enabling us to better define the moral and legislative rights of social robots within our society. I propose a distinctive position that allows us to accept that robots are tools, that our emotional reaction to them can be important to their usefulness, and that this emotional reaction is not a direct indicator that robots deserve either moral consideration or rights. The positive framework of Fictional Dualism provides us with an understanding of what social robots are and with a plausible basis for our relationships with them as we bring them further into society.

Fictionalism about Chatbots

“…The make-believe approach accommodates these beliefs by propos-7. For a complementary though non-Waltonian fictionalist account of our interaction with robots, see Sweeney (2021).…”

Mitigating emotional risks in human-social robot interactions through virtual interactive environment indication

“…The virtual environment of social robots is based on virtual interactions, which are mainly manifested as virtual emotional relationships shaped by human-social robot interactions. Sweeney interprets the relationship between humans and social robots as a "fictional" emotional relationship, arguing that the relationship between humans and social robots is a relationship to an object with a fictional overlay (Sweeney, 2021). Contrarily, interaction in a virtual environment, as we have argued, is the idea that from the moment a person interacts with a social robot, the person is already involved in a virtual environment, in which the person acts as the protagonist and is engaged in an interplay with other characters, i.e., the social robot.…”

Why Indirect Harms do not Support Social Robot Rights

“…In Sweeney (2021), I proposed a theory of the metaphysics of social robots that provides an alternative framework for understanding our relationship with them. Rather than thinking of social robots as analogous to animals in our environment, we are to think of them as mechanical objects with fictional overlays.…”

“…We cannot harm the object as it has no agency, only the fictional appearance of agency and, although our emotional response might lead us to think otherwise, we cannot harm the fiction. In Sweeney (2021), I argue that calls for restrictive legislation to block the permitting of individual acts of harm to 1 3 social robots are overly zealous-we would not introduce a law to prevent cruel literature nor a law to prevent the decapitation of teddies, despite finding the latter distasteful. As Mill put it, '[…] the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.…”

“… See Rodogno (2016) for a thorough consideration of the claim, ultimately refuted, that our reaction can be dismissed as sentimental.19 Where the anthropomorphising occurs, the fictional character is created by us humans as we engage with a social robot. For more to motivate this claim seeSweeney (2021).…”