Lively robots: robotic technologies in COVID-19

Abstract

In this article, we contribute to robot geographies by developing the idea of robotic 'liveliness' in the context of their increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our framing draws on new materialism, and builds the idea of liveliness by considering robots' agential capacities in three different ways: as apparently autonomous technologies; as inorganic and mechanical bodies; and as perpetually unfinished and contingent things. We examine a range of examples of their deployment during the pandemic to speculate on the potential for robots to emerge as 'caring subjects' via this notion of liveliness, and argue that it offers an approach that can contribute to critiques about their use in 'caring' roles, an application which is rapidly developing in the area of social robotics. We contend that this claim to 'care' within robotics is one reason why exploration and framing of their liveliness is needed.