Robophilosophy in Aarhus was even better than I expected. Lots of good papers and many nice people working with humanities and social sciences approaches to robots. This theatre performance, called Replik.a, by a Stuttgart troupe, was a highlight. I really was not sure whether the second actor was a human or a robot until I talked with both afterwards.
No to robot rights
I’ve come away as an activist against robot rights. I think it’s a mistake to make 3 categories: person, thing, and robot, as David Gunkel proposes, when there should be one: actants. Attributing rights is not an ontological question but a mobilisation of heterogenous actants (laws, politicians, philosophers, slogans, etc), often for good reasons. But I agree with David that slave law is not a good solution to regulating robots.
Emotional connections are real
I do think people can make emotional connections with robots (and it’s not weird), and may care about them. I thinks it’s not good if someone sees this and abuses the robot. Service robots with social features are emerging actants that can do work, communicate, entertain and participate in affective relationships. There may be applications in homes, workplaces and public spaces. I don’t agree with Sherry Turkle that the problem is with us if we choose to spend time with non-human actants.
But robots can be manipulative
But there is a range of new ethical and political concerns with social robots, particularly because if these become a widespread media form of working / entertaining / caring actants. They will also be intimate surveillance devices tailored to influence, nudge or manipulate their human friends through ‘captivation lures’ (Sandrine Rose Schiller Hansen). If they’re available at scale (this may never happen), they will be networked with big tech profiling, advertising, subscriptions and care plans. If not robots, large language models are soon likely to be monetised through personalised advertising or can’t-do-without subscriptions.
Beware moonshots
And let’s call out the moonshot project Hiroshi Ishiguro proposed that connects his (very cool) robots at Osaka University with a future ‘human-robot symbiotic society’ that he says will have solved disease, disability, environmental destruction and waste by 2050. It’s not even funny. But it’s worth keeping a critical eye even on some of the more modest and credible research on robots for elder care, autism, education, rescue, healthcare and other settings. This is not to say they have no possible applications, but to point out that technosolutionist funding can be attracted to projects that claim to benefit such marginalised groups, even if these groups have not been involved with its initiation. And rather than using empiricist experimental methods, why not bring in social and cultural researchers for more action research with genuine involvement of these groups? Tech can only be part of this, and should not be the only driver. Interdisciplinarity should be genuine and not post hoc.
The limits of anthropomorphism
Even if we do want technologies with human-like (and non-human-like (Eleanor Sandry)) appearances and complex behaviour, let’s get away from extending the material metaphor of anthropomorphism into every aspect of discourse about these technologies. It’s better to be straight that this is human machine communication: a set of emerging media technologies that present as actants with which we can communicate (Andrea Guzman). It is going to get weird, and we need to research it and talk about it.
Why deny robots rights, then?
So, why am I against robot rights? Well, I can’t see technological artefacts needing rights because they are sentient emotional autonomous AGI robots who want to choose their own lifestyle and self-actualise for the good of society, as in sci-fi. Robots will first be owned by corporations and rich people, and will do their bidding. If someone sends a robot up the street, wearing advertising and bumping into pedestrians, the robot should not be the only thing held responsible for its mischief. Of course this is all spurious, but let’s be careful granting autonomous actants access to public space. Several US states (including Pennsylvania) have legislated that delivery robots have the same rights as pedestrians to cross the road safely. How many of these do we want? Well, I’ve seen these in action in Corvallis and I think they’re cute and useful to a point. But I’m not sure how many I’d like in my neighbourhood.
I’m planning to go back to Robophilosophy in 2026 and report on my research with Justine Humphry on the affective and industrial aspects of robots in service industries. It’s coming and it matters.
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