Introduction: Situating the Human in Social Robots

2015

Traditionally the social has been considered as a characteristic of human beings, not of inanimate machines. At the same time, each technological device can be considered social born out of a complex process of invention, implementation, distribution and domestication by users (Hirsch and Silverstone 2004; Lasen 2013). Since recent technical developments have made possible rather detailed technical mimicking of human beings and their social features, and incorporating them in silicon chips, there is a pronounced need to understand to what extent the humanness can be implanted in social robots. This is also an occasion to think over and discuss what the human is when considered in this conte…