Robots from Nowhere: A Case Study in Speculative Sociotechnical Design and Design Fiction for Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Much Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research is, in fact, speculative. The relatively far-future horizon of pervasive robot deployment means we are, in effect, designing for a best guess of what the world might look like in the future based on how it looks now. In doing so, we are contributing to the bringing about of that world over others. Drawing on notions of speculative design and sociotechnical imaginaries, this pictorial presents snippets of speculative, sociotechnical fiction writing, which (re-)imagine human-machine interactions in the socialist utopia future world of William Morris' 19<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> century novel “News from Nowhere”. Each fiction snippet is paired with references to the current academic literature that inspires it, in addition to some takeaway discussion points for the HRI community of today. My hope is to assert speculative, sociotechnical thinking as legitimate HRI design practice, and to demonstrate the value it can bring to our field.