Does Cultural Robotics Need Culture? Conceptual Fragmentation and the Problems of Merging Culture with Robot Design

Bibliographic Data

ID8092431
AuthorsMasoumeh Mansouri (0000-0002-4527-7586, corresponding author), Henry Taylor
Year2023
Volume16
Issue2
Pages385-401
Publication date2023-12-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Social Robotics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1875-4791 • E-ISSN: 1875-4805
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12369-023-01085-y
OpenAlexW4390405144
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited73

Increasingly, roboticists have to pay attention to cultural norms and expectations. But roboticists have generally worked with a relatively narrow understanding of culture, based on nationality. This contrasts with the rich and diverse understandings of culture from disciplines as diverse as sociology, philosophy, and anthropology. Here we draw on the philosophy of science literature on scientific terminology to argue that culture is a conceptually fragmented concept: the concept has no unified definition, and alternative definitions of culture are useful for different areas within robotics. We argue that this has important implications for robotics. We consider two possible reactions to this situation. One claims that, despite the lack of a unified definition, the concept of culture still fulfils useful roles within robotics, and ought to be preserved. The other argues that the problems with the concept are so great that the concept ought to be eliminated from discussions in robotics. We argue in favour of the former option

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Nationality · Political science · Robot · Robotics · Sociology · Terminology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Computer Science · Language and cultural evolution · Psychology · Social Robot Interaction and HRI · Artificial Intelligence · Law · Philosophy

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