Human-Robot Relationships

Abstract

Human-robot relationships are a topic amply explored in popular movies and fiction, and the author of this chapter argues that robots are rapidly moving from the realm of sci-fi depictions into concrete societal reality. The advent of this new class of servants and coworkers will challenge conventional assumptions about personhood, identity, and the moral status of machines. The author references a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury about a grandmother robot to illustrate the complex and unexpected relationships that can develop between humans and their robots. The chapter also explores the notion of the social robot and how a social model of selfhood—the idea that identity is constituted through relationships—can help humans adapt more fruitfully to their relationships, emotional and social, with robots. The chapter also surveys the growing academic research about the emotional and psychological bonds formed by humans with robots.