The ontological and functional status of robots: How firm our representations are?

Gaudiello, Ilaria; Lefort, Sébastien; Zibetti, Elisabetta

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.060

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…It is important to note that all social robots, independently of where they are located on this spectrum, tend to reach the threshold at which, in the eye of the user, objects become subjects. This is indicated, or at least strongly suggested, by research on human users’ representations of social robots (Kahn et al, 2002; Severson and Carlson, 2010; Turkle, 2011; Gaudiello et al, 2015). Empirical results show that social robots tend to blur the traditional ontological categories that humans use to describe the world.…”

Section: Social Robotics As Applied Anthropomorphismmentioning

confidence: 89%

Anthropomorphism in Human–Robot Co-evolution

2018

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Social robotics entertains a particular relationship with anthropomorphism, which it neither sees as a cognitive error, nor as a sign of immaturity. Rather it considers that this common human tendency, which is hypothesized to have evolved because it favored cooperation among early humans, can be used today to facilitate social interactions between humans and a new type of cooperative and interactive agents – social robots. This approach leads social robotics to focus research on the engineering of robots that activate anthropomorphic projections in users. The objective is to give robots “social presence” and “social behaviors” that are sufficiently credible for human users to engage in comfortable and potentially long-lasting relations with these machines. This choice of ‘applied anthropomorphism’ as a research methodology exposes the artifacts produced by social robotics to ethical condemnation: social robots are judged to be a “cheating” technology, as they generate in users the illusion of reciprocal social and affective relations. This article takes position in this debate, not only developing a series of arguments relevant to philosophy of mind, cognitive sciences, and robotic AI, but also asking what social robotics can teach us about anthropomorphism. On this basis, we propose a theoretical perspective that characterizes anthropomorphism as a basic mechanism of interaction, and rebuts the ethical reflections that a priori condemns “anthropomorphism-based” social robots. To address the relevant ethical issues, we promote a critical experimentally based ethical approach to social robotics, “synthetic ethics,” which aims at allowing humans to use social robots for two main goals: self-knowledge and moral growth.

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Section: Social Robotics As Applied Anthropomorphismmentioning

confidence: 89%

Anthropomorphism in Human–Robot Co-evolution

2018

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“…When it comes to a conceptualized understanding of physical objects (i.e., entities), individuals rely on a basic cognitive framework referred to as ontology, a system of boundaries which allows for a basic categorization of an entity along the lines of its perceived features and attributes. Within such an ontology, different ontological categories then represent foundational distinctions between the broadest classes of entities that children adapt when maturing to make sense of the world around them (Severson & Carlson, 2010;Gelman, 2013;Gaudiello, Lefort, & Zibetti, 2015).…”

Section: Ontological Framework Of Living and Non-living Core Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If DVAs were indeed truly marginal, according to what is known about human cognitive development, it would support Bernstein & Crowley's (2008) conclusion that "children raised increasingly amid intelligent technologies will grow up thinking differently about some concepts that developmental psychologists have previously considered universal and inevitable" (p. 242). Some writers have suggested that these marginal entities might constitute a new ontological category in its own right, which resulted in the formulation of the so-called new ontological category hypothesis (NOCH): until recently, the perceived ontological boundaries of the human environment have remained stable, but modern technological developments have started to challenge some of the most fundamental certainties of our environment's nature of being -such as the superiority of the living core domain regarding intelligence in general and human intelligence in particular (Kahn et al, 2011(Kahn et al, , 2012Gaudiello et al, 2015).…”

Section: Ontological Framework Of Living and Non-living Core Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, the main argument of NOCH challenges the main argument of anthropomorphism: based on children's early exposure to intelligently behaving machines (and parallel to the development of other ontological categories), a new distinct category might emerge in children's belief systems. Hence, children's observable interactions with, and perception of, DVAs would not be the result of anthropomorphism; instead, these empirical patterns would emerge from an ontological existence in its own right (for a detailed discussion of the empirical evidence that would be required by NOCH, see Severson & Carlson, 2010; for a concrete example of an empirical operationalization, see Gaudiello et al, 2015).…”

Section: Ontological Framework Of Living and Non-living Core Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Alexa, What Are You? Exploring Primary School Children’s Ontological Perceptions of Digital Voice Assistants in Open Interactions

Festerling¹,

Siraj²

2020

Human Development

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Today's children grow up in an environment that is increasingly characterized by digital voice assistants (DVAs), such as Alexa, Siri, or the Google Assistant. This paper argues that any attempt to investigate children's interactions with, and perceptions of, DVAs should be based on the theoretical grounds of an ontological framework that considers children's genuine understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a machine. Based on focus groups and a gamified data collection design, our empirical inquiry applied qualitative methods to explore primary school children's (n = 27, age range: 6-10 years, average age: 8.6 years) open interactions with DVAs. In particular, our focus was on how DVAs were embedded in children's general ontological belief system, and how children interpreted certain aspects of DVAs' interactive capabilities as being genuinely humanoid or non-humanoid. On the one hand, our findings suggest that children's interactions with DVAs might be more an end in itself than a means to an end, meaning that children primarily interact with DVAs for the sake of engaging excitement instead of using the devices' utilitarian functionalities. On the other hand, we found that children in our sample held firm ontological beliefs about the distinct nature of humans and machines, whilst interpreting certain aspects of DVAs' interactive capabilities as being genuinely humanoid (e.g., non-responsiveness, delayed responses, inaccuracy) and non-humanoid (e.g., permanent responsiveness, promptness, accuracy, limited conversational capacities, lack of common sense, standardized responses) at the same time.

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“…However, behavioral objects are not only artificial objects impregnated with human values but embodied entities that, in a real yet very specific sense, exhibit a behavior. Behavioral objects are objects that display a sufficient range of cues to be considered by our own naive psychology as the potential recipients of mental attributes; they possess an ability to trump our sense of what is alive and what is not (Gaudiello, Lefort, & Zibetti, 2015).…”

Section: Anthropomorphism and The Attribution Of Psychological Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Objects: The Rise of the Evocative Machines

Levillain

Zibetti

2017

Journal of Human-Robot Interaction

Self Cite

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A new race of artifacts comes equipped with behavioral properties. Those properties transmute the very nature of the object, granting it a life of its own and a special status that stems from the psychological attributions humans naturally produce when confronted by autonomous movements. This article examines what makes behavioral objects special in terms of the psychological properties they evoke in an observer. We look into the notion of behavior and evaluate to what extent the concept of anthropomorphism is a valid construct when considering the behavior of artificial objects. Based on recent research in cognitive psychology, we propose a framework to conceptualize the way people infer psychological attributes from movement, and the way it applies to behavioral objects.

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The ontological and functional status of robots: How firm our representations are?

Cited by 19 publications

References 33 publications

Anthropomorphism in Human–Robot Co-evolution

Anthropomorphism in Human–Robot Co-evolution

Alexa, What Are You? Exploring Primary School Children’s Ontological Perceptions of Digital Voice Assistants in Open Interactions

Behavioral Objects: The Rise of the Evocative Machines

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