Sociality and Normativity for Robots (eBook)

Raul Hakli (PhD) studied philosophy and computer science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He received his PhD in theoretical philosophy in 2010. While editing the book he was Associate Professor at the Aarhus University, Denmark. Currently he works as a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include social ontology, collective intentionality, epistemology, philosophy of social robotics, and philosophy of the social sciences.Johanna Seibt (PhD. at the Univ of Pittsburg, USA; Dr. phil. habil. at the Univ of Konstanz, Germany) is Professor for Applied Process Ontology and Integrative Social Robotics, Aarhus University, Denmark; previously she taught at the Univ of Texas at Austin, USA. Her main research area is in analytical ontology and metaphysics. More recently she works also in philosophy of social robotics. She is head of the Research Unit for Robophilosophy at the School for Culture andSociety, Aarhus University, which conducts interdisciplinaryHumanities research of and in social robotics and coordinates the international Research Network for Transdisciplinary Studies in Social Robotics (TRANSOR).

Preface 6
Contents 8
1 ``Sociality and Normativity for Robots'': An Introduction 10
References 19
2 Towards an Ontology of Simulated Social Interaction: Varieties of the ``As If'' for Robots and Humans 20
2.1 Introduction 21
2.2 Against Fictionalist Deflations of Robot Sociality 24
2.3 Five Notions of Simulation 31
2.4 Simulatory Expansions of Interactions 37
2.5 Simulated Social Interactions 41
2.6 Conclusion 45
References 46
3 Robot Sociality: Genuine or Simulation? 49
3.1 Introduction 49
3.2 Normative Emergence 50
3.2.1 Process and Emergence 50
3.2.2 Why Process? 52
3.2.3 Maybe Causal Emergence, but Normative Emergence? 53
3.3 The Emergence of Normative Function 55
3.3.1 Etiological Models of Normative Function 56
3.4 Representation and Cognition 58
3.4.1 Encoding Models of Representation 60
3.4.2 Problems with Encodingism 60
3.5 The Ontology of Sociality 62
3.5.1 Two Agents 62
3.5.2 Conventions 63
3.5.3 Institutionalized Conventions 64
3.5.4 How Are Situation Conventions Created and Evoked? 65
3.5.4.1 Emergence and Implicitness 66
3.5.5 A Word About Language 67
3.5.5.1 Sub-utterances and Grammar 67
3.5.6 Persons 68
3.6 Stakes in Sociality 69
3.6.1 Sociality and Historicity 69
3.7 Robots and Sociality 70
3.7.1 Is This Limitation Necessary? 70
3.7.2 Robots as Moral Agents 71
3.8 Conclusion 71
References 72
4 Prioritizing Otherness: The Line Between Vacuous Individuality and Hollow Collectivism 75
4.1 Introduction 75
4.2 Getting Priorities Straight 77
4.3 The Paradox of Individual Subjectivity 81
4.4 Sociality Without Prior Individuality 84
4.5 Enactivism: Individuality as a Self-Maintenant Network of Processes 85
4.6 Participatory Sense-Making: An Enactivist Approach to Sociality 88
4.7 Conclusion: Scaling Participatory Sense-Making Without Erasing Otherness 93
References 94
5 Social Meta-Learning: Learning How to Make Use of Others as a Resource for Further Learning 96
5.1 Theoretical Framework 96
5.1.1 An Action-Based Framework: Interactivism 97
5.1.1.1 Object Representation 97
5.1.1.2 Social Agent Representation 98
5.1.1.3 Learning and Development 98
5.1.2 Social Meta-Learning 99
5.2 The Current Study 100
5.2.1 The Debate: Selective vs. Over-imitation 100
5.2.2 Resolving the Debate: Cultural Affordances 101
5.2.3 Imitation as a Type of Social Situation 103
5.2.4 Rationale for the Hypotheses 104
5.2.4.1 Hypothesis 1 104
5.2.4.2 Hypothesis 2 105
5.2.4.3 Hypothesis 3 105
5.2.4.4 Hypothesis 4 106
5.2.5 Methods 106
5.2.5.1 Participants 106
5.2.5.2 Apparatus 106
5.2.5.3 Design 107
5.2.5.4 Procedure 107
5.2.5.5 Coding and Reliability 108
5.2.6 Results 109
5.2.6.1 Hypothesis 1: Did Over-imitation Increase with Age? 109
5.2.6.2 Hypothesis 2: Were Children Sensitive to the Difference Between Relevant and Irrelevant Actions? 110
5.2.6.3 Hypothesis 3: Does Over-imitation Depend on the Broader Type of Situation? 110
5.2.6.4 Hypothesis 4: Does Verbal Framing Effect Imitation Response? 112
5.2.6.5 Summary 112
5.2.7 Discussion 112
5.2.7.1 Beyond Artifacts and Agents: Social-Cognitive and Motivational Aspects 113
5.2.7.2 Re-thinking Novelty: Cognitive Aspects 115
5.2.7.3 Transcending Fidelity: Cognitive and Motivational Aspects 115
5.2.7.4 Verbal Framing and Forgetting 116
5.3 Conclusion 116
References 118
6 Mindshaping and Robotics 121
6.1 Social Robotics and the Research in Social Cognition 121
6.2 Social Cognition: Mindreading or Mindshaping? 122
6.2.1 Mindreading 123
6.2.2 Mindshaping 126
6.3 Some Arguments for the Mindshaping View 128
6.3.1 Prediction and Explanation Without Mindreading 128
6.3.2 The Problem of Tractability 131
6.4 Why Mindshaping Matters for Social Robotics 132
6.4.1 Developmental Robotics 133
6.4.2 General Intelligence and Social Robotics 135
6.4.3 Companion Robots 137
6.5 Conclusions 138
References 139
7 An Affordance-Based Conceptual Framework for Spatial Behavior of Social Robots 142
7.1 Introduction 142
7.2 Affordances in Robotics 144
7.3 Activity Spaces and Affordance Spaces 145
7.3.1 General Structure of Activity Spaces 145
7.3.2 General Structure of Affordance Spaces 148
7.3.3 Affordances and Affordance Spaces 149
7.4 Affordance-Space Awareness 151
7.5 Reason-Driven Activity-Placement Planning 154
7.5.1 Candidate Affordance Spaces and Conflicts 154
7.5.2 Socio-Spatial Reasons 156
7.6 Case Studies 157
7.6.1 An Activity-Placement Scenario 158
7.6.2 An Affordant-Placement Scenario 159
7.7 Discussion and Outlook 160
References 162
8 Key Elements for Human-Robot Joint Action 164
8.1 Introduction 164
8.2 A Simple Scenario 165
8.3 Acting Autonomously 167
8.4 Coordination Requirements in Joint Action 169
8.5 Coordination Processes in Human-Human Joint Action 170
8.6 A (Tentative) Translation of Coordination Processes in Human-Robot Joint Action 173
8.7 A Framework for Joint Action 176
8.7.1 Shared Distal/Decisional Level 178
8.7.2 Shared Proximal/Execution Level 178
8.7.3 Coupled Motor/Functional Level 179
8.8 Conclusion: Toward a Framework for Joint Action 180
References 180
9 Joint Commitments and Group Identification in Human-Robot Interaction 183
9.1 Introduction: Robots and Commitments 183
9.2 Interpersonal Commitment in Human-Robot Interaction Made Easy 187
9.2.1 Reputation 189
9.2.2 Emotions 190
9.2.3 Bodily Cues 194
9.2.4 Conversational Expertise 195
9.2.5 Meshing Sub-plans and Mutual Supportiveness 197
9.3 Joint Commitment and Group Identification 198
9.4 Conclusions 199
References 200
10 The Problem of Understanding Social Norms and What it Would Take for Robots to Solve it 204
10.1 Introduction 204
10.2 The Case of Animals 205
10.3 Two Objections 206
10.4 The Case of Children 209
10.5 Three Steps Towards Normative Understanding 212
10.5.1 The Ronnie Situation 213
10.5.2 A Three Stage Model of Normative Understanding 214
10.6 The Case of Robots 215
References 218
11 ``I Tech Care'': How Healthcare Robotics Can Change the Future of Love, Solidarity, and Responsibility 219
11.1 The Power of Abstraction of New Technologies: ``Transparency'' and the ``Moralization of the Things'' 219
11.2 Robots and Healthcare 223
11.3 Why Is Taking Care So Important for Human Beings? Love and Solidarity 225
11.4 The Challenge: The Responsibility to Provide Healthcare in a Transparent Technologized World 227
11.5 Conclusions 232
References 232
12 ``Robot'' as a Life-Form Word 235
12.1 Introduction 235
12.2 Robot Routines vs. Discursive Practices 240
12.3 Mechanical Artifacts vs. Living Organisms 244
12.4 The Capekian Scenario as an Intuition Pump 250
References 252
Author Index 253
Subject Index 260