Robotics Has a Race Problem

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sparrow
Keyword(s):  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Race Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Design And Manufacture ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Race Problem

If people are inclined to attribute race to humanoid robots, as recent research suggests, then designers of social robots confront a difficult choice. Most existing social robots have white surfaces and are therefore, I suggest, likely to be perceived as White, exposing their designers to accusations of racism. However, manufacturing robots that would be perceived as Black, Brown, or Asian risks representing people of these races as slaves, especially given the historical associations between robots and slaves at the very origins of the project of robotics. The only way engineers might avoid this ethical and political dilemma is to design and manufacture robots to which people will struggle to attribute race. Doing so, however, would require rethinking the relationship between robots and “the social,” which sits at the heart of the project of social robotics. Discussion of the race politics of robots is also worthwhile because of the potential it has to generate insights about the politics of artifacts, the relationship between culture and technology, and the responsibilities of engineers.

Flourishing Isn’t Free: Paying Down Our Moral and Social Debt in Robotic Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Vallor
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Sociotechnical Systems ◽  
Robotic Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social

The conversation about social robots and ethics has matured considerably over the years, moving beyond two inadequate poles: superficially utilitarian analyses of ethical ‘risks’ of social robots that fail to question the underlying sociotechnical systems and values driving robotics development, and speculative, empirically unfounded fears of robo-pocalypses that likewise leave those underlying systems and values unexamined and unchallenged. Today our perspective in the field is normatively richer and more empirically grounded. However, there is still work to be done. In the transition from risk-mitigation that accepts the social status quo, to deeper thinking about how to design different worlds in which we might flourish with social robots, we nevertheless have not reckoned with the moral and social debt already accumulated in existing robotics systems and our broader culture of sociotechnical innovation. We relish our creative and philosophical imaginings of a future in which we live well with robots, but without a serious reckoning with the past and present, and the legacies of harm and neglect that must be redressed and repaired in order for those futures to be possible and sustainable. This talk explores those legacies and their accumulated debts, and what it will take to liberate social robotics from them.

scholarly journals Social robotics and the modulation of social perception and bias

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1771) ◽  
pp. 20180037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Skewes ◽  
David M. Amodio ◽  
Johanna Seibt
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Impression Formation ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Identity Based

The field of social robotics offers an unprecedented opportunity to probe the process of impression formation and the effects of identity-based stereotypes (e.g. about gender or race) on social judgements and interactions. We present the concept of fair proxy communication—a form of robot-mediated communication that proceeds in the absence of potentially biasing identity cues—and describe how this application of social robotics may be used to illuminate implicit bias in social cognition and inform novel interventions to reduce bias. We discuss key questions and challenges for the use of robots in research on the social cognition of bias and offer some practical recommendations. We conclude by discussing boundary conditions of this new form of interaction and by raising some ethical concerns about the inclusion of social robots in psychological research and interventions. This article is part of the theme issue ‘From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human–robot interaction’.

First encounter with robot Alpha: How individual differences interact with vocal and kinetic cues in users’ social responses

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 2522-2547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Xu
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Gender Attitudes ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

The Computers are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm was proposed more than two decades ago to understand humans’ interaction with computer technologies. Today, as emerging technologies like social robots become more personal and persuasive, questions of how users respond to them socially, what individual factors leverage the relationship, and what constitutes the social influence of these technologies need to be addressed. A lab experiment was conducted to examine the interactions between individual differences and social robots’ vocal and kinetic cues. Results suggested that users developed more trust in a social robot with a human voice than with a synthetic voice. Users also developed more intimacy and interest in the social robot when it was paired with humanlike gestures. Moreover, individual differences including users’ gender, attitudes toward robots, and robot exposure affected their psychological responses. The theoretical, practical, and ethical value of the findings was further discussed in the study.

Prophets and Profits of Racial Science

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruha Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Precision Medicine ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Racial Ethnic

In this response to Terence Keel and John Hartigan’s debate over the social construction of race, I aim to push the discussion beyond the terrain of epistemology and ideology to examine the contested value of racial science in a broader political economy. I build upon Keel’s concern that even science motivated by progressive aims may reproduce racist thinking and Hartigan’s proposition that a critique of racial science cannot rest on the beliefs and intentions of scientists. In examining the value of racial-ethnic classifications in pharmacogenomics and precision medicine, I propose that analysts should attend to the relationship between prophets of racial science (those who produce forecasts about inherent group differences) and profits of racial science (the material-semiotic benefits of such forecasts). Throughout, I draw upon the idiom of speculation—as a narrative, predictive, and financial practice—to explain how the fiction of race is made factual, again and again. 

Diffusion and Adoption of Corruption in Developing Economies: Evidence from Ghana

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Solomon A. Keelson ◽  
Thomas Cudjoe ◽  
Manteaw Joy Tenkoran
Keyword(s):  
Social Values ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Developing Economy ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Institutional Failure ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
And Diffusion

The present study investigates diffusion and adoption of corruption and factors that influence the rate of adoption of corruption in Ghana. In the current study, the diffusion and adoption of corruption and the factors that influence the speed with which corruption spreads in society is examined within Ghana as a developing economy. Data from public sector workers in Ghana are used to conduct the study. Our findings based on the results from One Sample T-Test suggest that corruption is perceived to be high in Ghana and diffusion and adoption of corruption has witnessed appreciative increases. Social and institutional factors seem to have a larger influence on the rate of corruption adoption than other factors. These findings indicate the need for theoretical underpinning in policy formulation to face corruption by incorporating the relationship between the social values and institutional failure, as represented by the rate of corruption adoption in developing economies.

ADMINISTRATIVE AND LEGAL STATUS OF THE CAPITAL OF UKRAINE - THE HERO CITY OF KYIV AS A GUARANTEE OF THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS OF UKRAINE AND THE TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY OF THE CITY

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleksii Chepov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
City Councils ◽  
The Social ◽  
District Management ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The qualitative and clear definition of the legal regime of the capital of Ukraine, the hero city of Kyiv, is influenced by its legislative enshrinement, however, it should be noted that discussions are ongoing and one of the reasons for the unclear legal status of the capital is the ambiguity of current legislation in this area. Separation of the functions of the city of Kyiv, which are carried out to ensure the rights of citizens of Ukraine and the functions that guarantee the rights of the territorial community of the city of Kyiv. In the modern world, in legal doctrine and practice, the capital is understood as the capital of the country, which at the legislative level received this status and, accordingly, is the administrative and political center of the state, which houses the main state bodies and diplomatic missions of other states. It is the identification of the boundaries of the relationship between the competencies of state administrations and local self-government, in practice, often raises questions about their delimitation and ways of regulatory solution. Peculiarities of local self-government in Kyiv city districts are defined in the provisions of the Law on the Capital, which reveal the norms of the Constitution in these legal relations, according to which the issue of organizing district management in cities belongs to city councils. Likewise, it is unregulated by law to lose the particularity of the legal status of the territory of the city. It should be emphasized that the subject of administrative-legal relations is not a certain administrative-territorial entity, but the social group is designated - the territorial community of the city of Kiev, kiyani. Thus, the provisions on the city of Kyiv partially ignore the potential of the territorial community.

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