Robot friendship: Can a robot be a friend?

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Abstract

Friendship is used here as a conceptual vehicle for framing questions about the distinctiveness of human cognition in relation to natural systems such as other animal species and to artificial systems such as robots. By exploring this very common form of a human interpersonal relationship, the author indicates that even though it is difficult to say something generally true about friendship among humans, distinct forms of friendship as practiced and distinct notions of friendship have been investigated in the social and human sciences and in biology. A more general conceptualization of friendship as a triadic relation analogous to the sign relation is suggested. Based on this the author asks how one may conceive of robot-robot and robot-human friendships; and how an interdisciplinary perspective upon that relation can contribute to analyse levels of embodied cognition in natural and artificial systems.
Translated title of the contributionRobotvenskab: Kan en robot være en ven?
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems
Volume3
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)26-42
Number of pages17
ISSN2155-5028
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords

  • Faculty of Science
  • Embodiment
  • Friendship
  • Norms
  • Robot
  • Self
  • Semiotics
  • Social Cognition

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