The media equation: how people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places
Into the Image: Culture and Politics in the Field of Vision
Into the Image: Culture and Politics in the Field of Vision
The responsibility gap: Ascribing responsibility for the actions of learning automata
Ethics and Information Technology
Robots, Dennett and the autonomous: a terminological investigation
Minds and Machines
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In this paper, the author proposes a theoretical framework for drawing a line between acceptable and non-acceptable technologies, with a focus on autonomous social robots. The author considers robots as mediations and their ethical acceptance as depending on their impact on the notion of presence. Presence is characterised by networks of reciprocity which make human beings subject and object of actions and perceptions at the same time. Technological mediation can either promote or inhibit the reciprocity of presence. A medium that inhibits presence deserves ethical evaluation since it prevents the possibility of a mutual exchange, thus creating a form of power. Autonomous social robots are a special kind of technological mediation because they replace human presence with a simulation of presence. Therefore, in interactions between human beings and autonomous robots, attention should be paid to the consequences on legal, moral, and social responsibility, and, at the same time, the impact of simulated forms of presence on human beings.