Concepts for robot geographies

Abstract

This chapter explores new robot geographies. It considers recent work on robots and identifies a series of distinct conceptual orientations and empirical settings. I speculate on the messy, contingent and uncertain possibilities offered by robots, and advocate for an approach to research on this important new technology that foregrounds their affective and sensory affordances - or how it feels to be with robots. In doing so, I argue that such an orientation might, rather than reinforcing logics of control or prediction usually associated with AI-driven technologies, instead leave gaps for new stories, speculations and experiences of our lives in a digital world.