Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Re-evaluating the Form and Communication of Social Robots

The Benefits of Collaborating with Machinelike Robots

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper re-evaluates what constitutes a social robot by analysing how a range of different forms of robot are interpreted as socially aware and communicative. Its argument juxtaposes a critical assessment of the development of humanlike and animal-like robotic companions with a consideration of human relations with machinelike robots in working teams. The paper employs a range of communication theories alongside ideas relating to anthropomorphism and zoomorphism in discussing human–robot interactions. Some traditions of communication theory offer perspectives that support the development of humanlike and animal-like social robots. However, these perspectives have been critiqued within communications scholarship as unethically closed to the possibilities of otherness and difference. This paper therefore reconfigures and extends the use of communication theory to explore how machinelike robots are interpreted by humans as social and communicative others. This involves an analysis of human relations with explosive ordnance disposal robots and with the robotic desk lamp, AUR. The paper positions social robotics research as important in understanding working teams containing humans and robots. In particular, this paper introduces the value of tempered anthropomorphism and zoomorphism as processes that support communication between humans and machinelike robots, while also ensuring that a sense of the otherness of the machine and respect for its non-human abilities is retained.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ackerman E (2013) Soldiers can get emotionally attached to robots, and that may not be a good thing. Spectr IEEE 12:545–552

    Google Scholar 

  2. ALAVs Autonomous Light Air Vessels (2014) http://www.alavs.com/. Accessed 20 April 2014

  3. Asimov I (1990) Robot visions. ROC, New York

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bartneck C, Chioke R, Menges R, Deckers I (2005) Robot abuse—a limitation of the media equation. In: Proceedings of the interact 2005 workshop on abuse

  5. Bekoff M (2007) The emotional lives of animals: a leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy-and why they matter. New World Library; Distributed by Pub. Group West, Novato, Calif.: [s.l.]

  6. Breazeal C, Foerst A (1999) Schmoozing with robots: exploring the boundary of the original wireless network. In: Proceedings of the third international conference cognitive technology, pp 375–389

  7. Breazeal CL (2002) Designing sociable robots. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  8. Capek K (2006) R. U. R. eBooks@Adelaide. The University of Adelaide Library, Adelaide

    Google Scholar 

  9. Carey J (1992) Communication as culture: essays on media and society. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  10. Carpenter J (2013) The Quiet Professional: An investigation of U.S. military explosive ordnance disposal personnel interactions with everyday field robots. PhD, University of Washington

  11. Chang BG (1996) Deconstructing communication: representation, subject, and economies of exchange. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

    Google Scholar 

  12. Clark D (1997) On being the last Kantian in Nazi Germany: dwelling with animals after Levinas. In: Ham J, Senior M (eds) Animal acts: configuring the humans in western history. Routledge, New York, pp 165–198

    Google Scholar 

  13. Craig RT (1999) Communication theory as a field. Commun Theory 9:119–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Dautenhahn K (2013) Human–robot interaction. In: Soegaard Mads, Dam Rikke Friis (eds) The encyclopedia of human–computer interaction, 2nd edn. The Interaction Design Foundation, Aarhus

    Google Scholar 

  15. Dautenhahn K (1995) Getting to know each other–artificial social intelligence for autonomous robots. Robot Auton Syst 16:333–356. doi:10.1016/0921-8890(95)00054-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Dautenhahn K (1998) The art of designing socially intelligent agents: science, fiction, and the human in the loop. Appl Artif Intell 12:573–617

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Derrida J (2002) The animal that therefore I am (more to follow). Crit Inq 28:369–418

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Diehm C (2000) Facing nature: Levinas beyond the human. Philos Today 44:51–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ekman P (1999) Facial expressions. In: Dalgleish T, Power T (eds) The handbook of cognition and emotion. Wiley, Chichester, pp 301–320

  20. Finn A (2010) Developments and challenges for autonomous unmanned vehicles: a compendium. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. Flynn CP (2008) Social creatures: a human and animal studies reader. Lantern Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  22. Fong T, Nourbakhsh I, Dautenhahn K (2003) A survey of socially interactive robots. Robot Auton Syst 42:143–166

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Freud S (2004) The Uncanny (1919). In: Sandner D (ed) Fantastic literature: a critical reader. Praeger, Westport, pp 74–101

    Google Scholar 

  24. Garber M (2013) Funerals for fallen robots. The Atlantic

  25. Garreau J (2007) Bots on the ground: In the field of battle (or even above it), robots are a soldier’s best friend. Washington Post, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  26. Goffman E (1972) Interaction ritual: essays on face-to-face behaviour. Allen Lane, London

    Google Scholar 

  27. Gunkel DJ (2012) The machine question: critical perspectives on AI, robots, and ethics. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  28. Hanson Robotics Vision (2008) In: Hanson Robotics. http://hanson.robotics.com/. Accessed 18 Oct 2008

  29. Hearne V (2000) Adam’s task: calling animals by name. Akadine Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  30. Hoffman G (2007) Ensemble: fluency and embodiment for robots acting with humans. Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  31. Husserl E (1973) Cartesian meditations: an introduction to phenomenology. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

    Book  Google Scholar 

  32. Lang F, von Harbou T (1927) Metropolis. Universum Film (UFA)

  33. Leite I, Martinho C, Paiva A (2013) Social robots for long-term interaction: a survey. Int J Soc Robot 5:291–308. doi:10.1007/s12369-013-0178-y

  34. Levinas E (1990) The name of a dog, or natural rights. Difficult freedom. The Athlone Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  35. Levinas E (1989) Is ontology fundamental? Philos Today 33:121–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Levinas E (1989) The other in proust. In: Hand S (ed) Levinas read. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 160–165

    Google Scholar 

  37. Levinas E (1969) Totality and infinity. Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh

    Google Scholar 

  38. Lucas G (1977) Star wars episode IV: a new hope. Lucasfilm, Nicasio

    Google Scholar 

  39. Menzel P, D’Aluiso F (2000) Robo sapiens: evolution of a new species. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  40. Mori M (1970) The uncanny valley. Energy 7:33–35

    Google Scholar 

  41. Peters JD (1999) Speaking into the air: a history of the idea of communication. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  42. Pinchevski A (2005) By way of interruption: Levinas and the ethics of communication. Dusquene University Press, Pittsburgh

    Google Scholar 

  43. QinetiQ (2009) Fast, powerful and versatile, high payload robot technology. TALON, QinetiQ, Farnborough

  44. Reeves B, Nass CI (1996) The media equation: how people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. CSLI Publications, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  45. RoboKind About Us (2013) In: RoboKind Website. http://www.robokindrobots.com/. Accessed 18 Dec 2013

  46. Roderick I (2010) Considering the fetish value of EOD robots: how robots save lives and sell war. Int J Cult Stud 13:235–253. doi:10.1177/1367877909359732

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Russell JA (1994) Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expressions? A review of the cross-cultural studies. Psychol Bull 115:102–141. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Sandry E (2012) Dancing around the subject with robots: ethical communication as a “triple audiovisual reality”. Platf J Media Commun 4:79–90

    Google Scholar 

  49. Short S (2003) The measure of man?: Asimov’s Bicentennial Man, Star Trek’s Data, and being human. Extrapolation 44:209–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Singer PW (2010) Wired for war: the robotics revolution and conflict in the twenty-first century. Penguin Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  51. The Real Opie (2013) Soldiers are developing relationships with their battlefield robots, naming them, assigning genders, and even holding funerals when they are destroyed. In: Reddit/r/technology. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology. Accessed 18 Dec 2013

  52. Turkle S (2005) The second self: computers and the human spirit, MIT, Press edn. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  53. Turkle S, Breazeal C, Dast O, Scassellati B (2006) First encounters with Kismet and Cog. In: Messaris P (ed) Digital Media Transformation in Human Communication. Peter Lang, New York, pp 303–330

    Google Scholar 

  54. Waldman K (2013) Are soldiers too emotionally attached to military robots?. Slate, St. Louis

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The completion of this paper was made possible by the receipt of a CCI Research Fellowship in the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia

    Eleanor Sandry

Authors
  1. Eleanor Sandry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eleanor Sandry.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sandry, E. Re-evaluating the Form and Communication of Social Robots. Int J of Soc Robotics 7, 335–346 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0278-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0278-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation