Future touch in industry: Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots

Barker, Ned; Jewitt, Carey

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2021.102885

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…As noted earlier, the primary function of this narrative is to illustrate, and ground, the papers' distinct and original theoretical contributions [1], set against the limitations identified across the critical reviews above (sections 2 -4). It is therefore beyond the scope of this article to detail specific substantive findingsand these are discussed elsewhere [2], [3]. Consequently, the ethnographic narrative elaborates on themes sparsely.…”

Section: Research Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The research design uses ethnographic fieldwork across multiple industrial contexts to produce thick descriptions of how novel robotic technologies can remediate the dynamics of touch as situated in the social and sensory contexts of labour in the 'real world' (see [2], [3], [38], [39] for details on the methodological framing). In this theoretically orientated paper, we offer an ethnographic narrative derived from one site where a cobot had been recently introduced to assist with the task of 'swabbing' in a glass factory.…”

Section: Research Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such diversity heightens the need for contextual 'in the wild' accounts to better understand the implications of specific collaborative configurations. We, and others, have taken a human-centered stance to argue that these accounts should foreground workers' experiences and not evaluate the impact of cobots in relation to improving productivity alone [3], [12]. Current research however is skewed to focus on the latter where studies are ultimately concerned with evaluating the effectiveness of interface design for collaborative HRI in Manufacturing.…”

Section: Designing and Evaluating Effective Human-robot Collaboration...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the REMODEL [18] and APRIL [19] projects). To a large extent, the use of tactile sensors in industrial cobots is currently limited to detecting and avoiding human contact rather than for establishing 'responsive collaborations' [7], although these types of collaborations involving tactile sensors do populate the imaginaries of those that are designing the robots for future industries [3]. Other themes attended to in relation to effective interface design are the intuitiveness of task execution with cobots [16], and how much people rely on cobots that have a human-like versus machine-like appearances [17].…”

Section: Designing and Evaluating Effective Human-robot Collaboration...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The primary function * Place the footnote text for the author (if applicable) here. of this narrative is to illustrate, and ground, the papers' distinct and original theoretical contributions [1], set against the limitations identified across a series of critical reviews (sections 2 -4), rather than to detail specific substantive findings which are discussed elsewhere [2], [3]. These cobots (Socabelec's Swabbing Robot) share workspaces and the task of 'swabbing' with workers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

Barker

Jewitt

2023

J. Hum.-Robot Interact.

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Collaborative robots are increasingly entering industrial contexts and workflows. These contexts are not just locations for production, they are vibrant social and sensory environments. For better or for worse their entry brings potential to reorganize established tactile and affective dynamics that encompass production processes. There is still much to be learned about these highly contextual and complex dynamics in HRI research and the design of industrial robotics; common approaches in industrial collaborative robotics are restricted to evaluating ‘effective interface design’ whereas methods that seek to measure ‘affective touch’ have limited application to these industrial domains. This paper offers an extended analytical framework and methodological approach to deepen understandings of affect and touch beyond emotional responses to direct human-robot interactions. These distinct contributions are grounded in fieldwork in a glass factory with newly installed collaborative robots. They are illustrated through an ethnographic narrative that traces the emergence and circulation of affect, across material, experiential and social planes. Beyond this single case ‘tangled passages of tactile-affects’ is offered as novel and valuable concept, that is distinct from the notion of ‘affective touch’, and holds potential to generate holistic and nuanced understandings of how human experiences can be affected by the introduction of new robots in ‘the wild’.

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Section: Research Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Research Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Designing and Evaluating Effective Human-robot Collaboration...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Designing and Evaluating Effective Human-robot Collaboration...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

Barker

Jewitt

2023

J. Hum.-Robot Interact.

Self Cite

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Social Studies of the Future: A Brief Outlook About Their Contributions for ICT Areas

Araújo¹,

Urze²,

Silva³

2022

Proceedings of Seventh International Congress on Information and Communication Technology

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Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry

de Seta,

Shchetvina

2023

AI & Soc

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Machine vision is one of the main applications of artificial intelligence. In China, the machine vision industry makes up more than a third of the national AI market, and technologies like face recognition, object tracking and automated driving play a central role in surveillance systems and social governance projects relying on the large-scale collection and processing of sensor data. Like other novel articulations of technology and society, machine vision is defined, developed and explained by different actors through the work of imagination. In this article, we draw on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to understand how Chinese companies represent machine vision. Through a qualitative multimodal analysis of the corporate websites of leading industry players, we identify a cohesive sociotechnical imaginary of machine vision, and explain how four distinct visual registers contribute to its articulation. These four registers, which we call computational abstraction, human–machine coordination, smooth everyday, and dashboard realism, allow Chinese tech companies to articulate their global ambitions and competitiveness through narrow and opaque representations of machine vision technologies.

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Future touch in industry: Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots

Cited by 8 publications

References 29 publications

Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

Social Studies of the Future: A Brief Outlook About Their Contributions for ICT Areas

Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry

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