Sociomorphing, Not Anthropomorphizing: Towards a Typology of Experienced Sociality

TY - GEN

T1 - Sociomorphing, Not Anthropomorphizing

T2 - Robophilosophy 2020

AU - Seibt, Johanna

AU - Vestergaard, Christina

AU - Damholdt, Malene Flensborg

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, relative to interaction context, robotic properties can be related to types of human experiences and interactive dispositions. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this task by providing new descriptive tools. In social robotics and HRI it is commonly assumed that social interactions with robots are due to ‘anthropomorphizing’. We challenge this assumption and argue, on conceptual and empirical grounds, that social interactions with robots are not always the result of anthropomorphizing, i.e., the projection of imaginary or fictional human social capacities, but of sociomorphing, i.e., the perception of actual non-human social capacities. Sociomorphing can take many forms which phenomenally manifest themselves in various types of experienced sociality. We very briefly sketch core elements of the descriptive framework OASIS (the Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions) in order to show how one might develop a classificatory system for types of experienced sociality.

AB - Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, relative to interaction context, robotic properties can be related to types of human experiences and interactive dispositions. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this task by providing new descriptive tools. In social robotics and HRI it is commonly assumed that social interactions with robots are due to ‘anthropomorphizing’. We challenge this assumption and argue, on conceptual and empirical grounds, that social interactions with robots are not always the result of anthropomorphizing, i.e., the projection of imaginary or fictional human social capacities, but of sociomorphing, i.e., the perception of actual non-human social capacities. Sociomorphing can take many forms which phenomenally manifest themselves in various types of experienced sociality. We very briefly sketch core elements of the descriptive framework OASIS (the Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions) in order to show how one might develop a classificatory system for types of experienced sociality.

KW - Social robotics

KW - anthropomorphism

KW - asymmetric sociality

KW - forms of simulation

KW - levels of sociality

KW - ontology of human-robot interaction

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098846250&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3233/FAIA200900

DO - 10.3233/FAIA200900

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 9781643681542

T3 - Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications

SP - 51

EP - 67

BT - Culturally Sustainable Social Robotics

A2 - Nørskov, Marco

A2 - Seibt, Johanna

A2 - Quick, Oliver Santiago

PB - IOS Press

CY - Amsterdam

Y2 - 18 August 2020 through 21 August 2020

ER -