Could Robots Feel Pain?

This chapter considers the question of whether a robot could feel pain or experience other emotions and proposes empirical methods for answering this question. After a review of the biological functions of emotion and pain, the author argues that autonomous robots have similar functions that need to be fulfilled, which require systems analogous to emotion and pain. Protophenomenal analysis, which involves parallel reductions in the phenomenological and neurological domains, is explained and applied to the “hard problem” of robot emotion and pain. The author outlines empirical approaches to answering the fundamental questions on which depends the possibility of robot consciousness in general. The author then explains the importance of sensors distributed throughout a robot's body for the emergence of coherent emotional phenomena in its awareness. Overall, the chapter elucidates the issue of robot pain and emotion and outlines an approach to resolving it empirically.

Mechanology, Mindstorms, and the Genesis of Robots

This chapter examines the emergence of educational robotics, drawing on the philosophy of technology of Gilbert Simondon. In the 1950s, Simondon argued that the dominant understandings of technology are personified in the popular imaginings of the robot. These attitudes are polarised between simple instrumentalism, and dystopian anxiety about technology overcoming humankind. To improve the conceptualisation of technics he took an approach called mechanology, developing a suite of concepts that grasped technology in new ways: technological genesis; the margin of indetermination; lineages of abstract and concrete technologies; and the associated milieu. These concepts are useful in understanding the tradition of educational robotics starting in the 1970s, with Seymour Papert's ‘turtle' robot serving as a resource for learning mathematics. Since the 1980s, LEGO's Mindstorms kits have introduced learners and consumers to robotics concepts. Since the 1990s, theorists of embodied cognition in the 2000s have made use of Mindstorms to draw attention to the limits of symbolic intelligence.

Are You Really a Child?

A multitude of genres and types of characters, in Japanese comics and animated series, suggests many thought-provoking themes; i.e., questions about human nature. Many artists can see the answers to these questions in artificial humans – both cyborgs and androids. In this research, the author analyzes Japanese texts of popular culture in which artificial children are the protagonists of the stories. The author aims to compare a child figure in sociological discourse, considered there as vulnerable, to the representations in manga and anime, in which characters are created as children or technologically-modified prepubescents. In this chapter, the author presents ideas and culture associations for the concepts of android and cyborg. The chapter focuses also on analysis of the characters from Japanese comic books and animations – both androids and then cyborgs – according to transhumanistic and posthumanistic theories. The analysis results in a conclusion that a child figure is dehumanized in the context of cyborg and android child protagonists.

Girls Building Androids and Robots

There is still a considerable degree of catching up to do in regards to fostering gender equality within areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Children's leading medium, television, could offer role models of girls with competence in STEM areas, but unfortunately television programs often miss this chance. The children's television series Annedroids is a notable exception. This chapter provides insight into how children can be educated about gender equality in STEM with the aid of gender-sensitive media programs such as Annedroids. The chapter examines data from a reception study which was conducted under the leadership of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI) with 6- to 12-year-old children in the United States and Canada (N = 301). The research is enhanced by a conversation between Dr. Maya Götz, Head of IZI; Dr. Diana Nastasia, a contributor to the IZI research; and J. J. Johnson, the program's creator.

Giving Robots a Voice

Humans are becoming increasingly dependent on the ‘say-so' of machines, such as computers, smartphones, and robots. In epistemology, knowledge based on what you have been told is called ‘testimony' and being able to give and receive testimony is a prerequisite for engaging in many social roles. Should robots and other autonomous intelligent machines be considered epistemic testifiers akin to those of humans? This chapter attempts to answer this question as well as explore the implications of robot testimony for the criminal justice system. Few are in agreement as to the ‘types' of agents that can provide testimony. The chapter surveys three well-known approaches and shows that on two of these approaches being able to provide testimony is bound up with the possession of intentional mental states. Through a discussion of computational and folk-psychological approaches to intentionality, it is argued that a good case can be made for robots fulfilling all three definitions.

Graphical User Interface for the Control of a Biped Robot

The design and implementation of a graphical user interface (GUI) for the control and operation of a biped robot is presented. This GUI allows establishing communication between the user, the robot and a computer (controller) so that the robot can perform bipedal walking without the need to introduce commands that are not user-friendly. The developed graphic interface permits the user to carry out tasks operating on the robot without having to resort to commands that are not easy to use. This interface was created using the MATLAB-Simulink software and it presents important advantages compared to the manual operation of a robot.

Cyborgization

The image of the cyborg in modern society is being formed from the standpoint of modern scientific developments and media culture: the various phenomena of e-culture. The article presents an overview of current research related to understanding the nature of cyborgs, a philosophical analysis of the socio-humanitarian aspects of the process of cyborgization, the arguments pro and contra. The problem of cyborgization considered in the context of transformation of gender, immortality and ethics, etc. Special attention is paid to the study of the image of the cyborg in modern mass culture, from cinema to computer games.

Mecha-Media

How are robots, androids and cyborgs presented and received in the media? This chapter applies a social media analysis to this question by using empirical research on news stories that feature robotic technologies to see how robots are presented, consider what reporters focus on when writing about robots, and review how the public discusses and receives robots. The theoretical framework utilised focuses on how robot narratives are framed, how robot controversies are presented in different media, and how robots are domesticated through the media. The two main cases are a “robot hotel” in Japan, and a “killer robot” at a Volkswagen factory in Germany. News coverage of both stories shows widely differing ways for how the robot-narrative is framed.