Abstract
This chapter turns toward the consequences of human–human relationships when a relational approach to human–machine relationships is adopted. This happens in four ways. First, we enter the debate on robot rights and test the pragmacentrist approach. We find that a relational approach of this kind, similar to Gunkel’s and Coeckelbergh’s positions, defuses many of the issues motivating the robot rights debate. Second, we assess whether human-centered design requires some limitations to this relational approach, which it does. Third, we evaluate the relational real estate and propose to understand conversational AI as “digital persons” to explain issues of responsibility and blame. And fourth, we introduce new terminology to denote the fault lines creating social tension—robophobia and robophilia.
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Kempt, H. (2020). Social Reverberations. In: Chatbots and the Domestication of AI. Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56290-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56290-8_6
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