Sociomorphing and an Actor-Network Approach to Social Robotics

Most of human-robot interaction (HRI) research relies on an implicit assumption that seems to drive experimental work in interaction studies: the more anthropomorphism we can reach in robots, the more effective the robot will be in 'being social.' The notion of 'sociomorphing' was developed in order to challenge the assumption of ubiquitous anthropomorphizing. This paper aims to explore the notion of sociomorphing by analysing the possibilities offered by actor-network theory (ANT). We claim that ANT is a valid framework to re-think the conceptual couple anthropomorphizing / sociomorphing and answer the following question: What kind of negotiation process and social practices can be developed in HRI, given the notion of sociomorph interactional networks

What Does it Take to be a Social Agent?

The aim of this paper is to present a philosophically inspired list of minimal requirements for social agency that may serve as a guideline for social robotics. Such a list does not aim at detailing the cognitive processes behind sociality but at providing an implementation-free characterization of the capacities and skills associated with sociality. We employ the notion of intentional stance as a methodological ground to study intentional agency and extend it into a social stance that takes into account social features of behavior. We discuss the basic requirements of sociality and different ways to understand them, and suggest some potential benefits of understanding them in an instrumentalist way in the context of social robotics.The aim of this paper is to present a philosophically inspired list of minimal requirements for social agency that may serve as a guideline for social robotics. Such a list does not aim at detailing the cognitive processes behind sociality but at providing an implementation-free characterization of the capacities and skills associated with sociality. We employ the notion of intentional stance as a methodological ground to study intentional agency and extend it into a social stance that takes into account social features of behavior. We discuss the basic requirements of sociality and different ways to understand them, and suggest some potential benefits of understanding them in an instrumentalist way in the context of social robotics.Peer reviewe

Movement Acts in Breakdown Situations : How a Robot’s Recovery Procedure Affects Participants’ Opinions

Funding Information: Funding information : This research was partly funded by the Research Council of Norway as part of the Multimodal Elderly Care Systems (MECS) project, under grant agreement 247697. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Trenton Schulz et al., published by De Gruyter.Recovery procedures are targeted at correcting issues encountered by robots. What are people’s opinions of a robot during these recovery procedures? During an experiment that examined how a mobile robot moved, the robot would unexpectedly pause or rotate itself to recover from a navigation problem. The serendipity of the recovery procedure and people’s understanding of it became a case study to examine how future study designs could consider breakdowns better and look at suggestions for better robot behaviors in such situations. We present the original experiment with the recovery procedure. We then examine the responses from the participants in this experiment qualitatively to see how they interpreted the breakdown situation when it occurred. Responses could be grouped into themes of sentience, competence, and the robot’s forms. The themes indicate that the robot’s movement communicated different information to different participants. This leads us to introduce the concept of movement acts to help examine the explicit and implicit parts of communication in movement. Given that we developed the concept looking at an unexpected breakdown, we suggest that researchers should plan for the possibility of breakdowns in experiments and examine and report people’s experience around a robot breakdown to further explore unintended robot communication.Peer reviewe

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Term-driven E-Commerce

Die Arbeit nimmt sich der textuellen Dimension des E-Commerce an. Grundlegende Hypothese ist die textuelle Gebundenheit von Information und Transaktion im Bereich des elektronischen Handels. Überall dort, wo Produkte und Dienstleistungen angeboten, nachgefragt, wahrgenommen und bewertet werden, kommen natürlichsprachige Ausdrücke zum Einsatz. Daraus resultiert ist zum einen, wie bedeutsam es ist, die Varianz textueller Beschreibungen im E-Commerce zu erfassen, zum anderen können die umfangreichen textuellen Ressourcen, die bei E-Commerce-Interaktionen anfallen, im Hinblick auf ein besseres Verständnis natürlicher Sprache herangezogen werden

Trusted Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing; Trusted Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing

The successful deployment of AI solutions in manufacturing environments hinges on their security, safety and reliability which becomes more challenging in settings where multiple AI systems (e.g., industrial robots, robotic cells, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs)) interact as atomic systems and with humans. To guarantee the safe and reliable operation of AI systems in the shopfloor, there is a need to address many challenges in the scope of complex, heterogeneous, dynamic and unpredictable environments. Specifically, data reliability, human machine interaction, security, transparency and explainability challenges need to be addressed at the same time. Recent advances in AI research (e.g., in deep neural networks security and explainable AI (XAI) systems), coupled with novel research outcomes in the formal specification and verification of AI systems provide a sound basis for safe and reliable AI deployments in production lines. Moreover, the legal and regulatory dimension of safe and reliable AI solutions in production lines must be considered as well. To address some of the above listed challenges, fifteen European Organizations collaborate in the scope of the STAR project, a research initiative funded by the European Commission in the scope of its H2020 program (Grant Agreement Number: 956573). STAR researches, develops, and validates novel technologies that enable AI systems to acquire knowledge in order to take timely and safe decisions in dynamic and unpredictable environments. Moreover, the project researches and delivers approaches that enable AI systems to confront sophisticated adversaries and to remain robust against security attacks. This book is co-authored by the STAR consortium members and provides a review of technologies, techniques and systems for trusted, ethical, and secure AI in manufacturing. The different chapters of the book cover systems and technologies for industrial data reliability, responsible and transparent artificial intelligence systems, human centered manufacturing systems such as human-centred digital twins, cyber-defence in AI systems, simulated reality systems, human robot collaboration systems, as well as automated mobile robots for manufacturing environments. A variety of cutting-edge AI technologies are employed by these systems including deep neural networks, reinforcement learning systems, and explainable artificial intelligence systems. Furthermore, relevant standards and applicable regulations are discussed. Beyond reviewing state of the art standards and technologies, the book illustrates how the STAR research goes beyond the state of the art, towards enabling and showcasing human-centred technologies in production lines. Emphasis is put on dynamic human in the loop scenarios, where ethical, transparent, and trusted AI systems co-exist with human workers. The book is made available as an open access publication, which could make it broadly and freely available to the AI and smart manufacturing communities

Photographic Mediation as a Mode of Production: Investigating the Agency of Commercial Institutions in Contemporary Vernacular Photography

This dissertation argues that to understand what is at stake in contemporary vernacular photography, it is vital to account for the commercial imperatives that are invested in our photographic apparatus. The vernacular is often seen as emerging from the milieu of everyday life, operating outside of institutional constraints. However, commercial institutions have always played a vital role in shaping the meaning and matter of vernacular photography, producing the extended network of devices and protocols through which photographic activity takes place. Vernacular photography should therefore be seen to encapsulate a series of complex negotiations between individual desires and commercial imperatives. Through an examination of three central case studies - Kodak, Snapchat and Ditto Labs - this thesis aims to elucidate how the productive potential of vernacular photography is instrumentalized as a means of generating value. Bringing together approaches from western Marxism with contemporary theories of networked media and photography, the argument is made that photographic mediation can be usefully framed as a mode of production. Photographic mediation, referring to the processual and material dynamics of photography, is employed to investigate the circuits of labour, value and desire that flow through our photographic apparatus. In performing this analysis, the concept of deterritorialization is applied as a way of understanding how photographic mediation has become more productive through destabilizing the boundaries between photography, subjectivity and the everyday. As photography proliferates and disperses into the rhythms and atmospheres that constitute daily life, it is increasingly imbricated into the performance and production of identities, relationships and desires. Under these circumstances, it becomes all the more vital that we recognize the role of commercial actors in shaping not only our photographic apparatus, but also our ways of being in, and relating to, the world

Realising catastrophe: the financial ontology of the Anthropocene

This dissertation investigates how the financial risk management practice of catastrophe modelling is redefining the ontology of natural catastrophe. Drawing from and developing the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’, referring to co-production of the ‘social’ and the ‘natural’ on a planetary scale, the dissertation argues that simulation-based risk modelling of future ‘natural’ disasters in insurance and reinsurance markets is not just affecting how catastrophe is interpreted by economic agents, economised and financialised, but is also driving changes in the realisation of actual disasters. The thesis calls this recursive dynamic the ‘financial ontology of Anthropocene catastrophe’. In developing the argument, the thesis extends actor-network theoretical perspectives on the Anthropocene to take fuller account of market devices, performativity and calculative practices in finance. Documentary research, 62 interviews and 14 participant observation episodes serve to reconstruct current practices of catastrophe modelling and its history since it emerged as a boutique risk management practice in the 1980s. Ultimately, it has become embedded in the calculative practices of some of the largest insurance and financial companies in the world and underpinning a specialist disaster securities market. Adding conceptual depth and fine-grained empirical detail to literature on the financialisation-Anthropocene nexus, the dissertation asks us to reconsider the boundaries between economic representations of the world and the meaning and occurrence of catastrophes in market societies. In an age of anthropogenic climate change, the thesis also serves as an analytical and historical underpinning of epistemic practices in climate finance in the emerging, even more encompassing, ‘financial ontology of the Anthropocene’

Marginal Landscapes? The Azraq Oasis and the cultural landscapes of the final Pleistocene southern Levant

This thesis examines the final Pleistocene cultural landscape of the Azraq Oasis in eastern Jordan on the basis of archaeological fieldwork conducted at Ayn Qasiyya and AWS 48, two Epipalaeolithic sites in the southern Azraq wetlands. It challenges traditional understandings of landscape and socio-cultural changes during the Epipalaeolithic period, and this period’s role in shaping the subsequent emergence of agriculture and sedentism. The current model of socio-cultural change, which considers the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic transition as a development from simple foragers, to complex collectors, to farmers, is critically reviewed. Evidence from the Epipalaeolithic of the Le-vant is highlighted that strongly suggests that this unilineal sequence must be re-evaluated. Furthermore, the social evolutionary underpinnings of this model are critiqued and rejected. This social evolutionary model is based on a conceptualization of the southern Levantine landscape as sub-divided into distinct phyto-geographical zones, which suggest a dichotomy between a lush ‘core’ and a impoverished ‘periphery’. Palaeoenvironmental data, however, is argued to be poorly correlated with major instances of socio-cultural change. This dichotomy also relates to a static understanding of landscape as empty, commodified space. To examine the Azraq Oasis from a different perspective and to suggest an alternative narrative the archaeological evidence produced by three seasons of fieldwork at Ayn Qasiyya and AWS 48 is first described in detail, and then interpreted from a practice orientated perspective. This practice perspective centres on examining the châine opératoire of the chipped stone artefacts and the activities and practices at the sites. It is argued that practices at these localities shapes space into social places, and that hereby landscapes become socially and culturally constructed. Using data from Ayn Qasiyya specifically, the social interactions of diverse social communities in the Azraq Basin can be tentatively reconstructed, providing a further example of the way in which social space was created though social engagement. I argue that these instances of the creation of places, and the evidence for social interaction, provide an alternative perspective on the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic in the Azraq Basin and the southern Levant as a whole, which should lead us to reconsider the applicability of the geographical core-periphery dichotomy and social evolutionary models

Stories of extractivism and transformation

Diese Studie befasst sich mit den durch den Bergbau verursachten Umwelt- Sozial- und Territorialkonflikten in der Region Tarapacá, deren Probleme nicht nur mit den Umweltauswirkungen, sondern mit der allgemeinen Behandlung der Natur zum Zwecke des Profits und des Exports verbunden sind. Die Monographie konzentriert sich auf die Konfrontation zwischen dem Staat, den indigenen Gemeinschaften und den Bergbauunternehmen und beschreibt nuanciert die vielen Beziehungen und Verflechtungen zwischen ihnen. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit stehen die verschiedenen politischen, wirtschaftlichen, institutionellen und kulturellen Elemente im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung von Bergbau und ihre Folgen und Interdependenzen die in den einzelnen Kapiteln beschrieben und dargestellt werden. Im Rahmen nationaler Umweltvorschriften, die die Entwicklung des Bergbaus und anderer Tätigkeiten mit großen Auswirkungen auf die Umwelt zu regulieren versuchen, generiert der heutige ressourcenabbau bestimmte Vereinbarungen mit den lokalen Gemeinschaften die in der Nähe der Bergbaugebiete leben. Das Fehlen von Vereinbarungen kann zu Konflikten und Widerstand seitens der Gemeinschaften führen. Dadurch könnten bestimmte Bergbauprojekte mit hohen Investitionskosten gestoppt oder verzögert werden. Auf diese Weise werden Institutionen, unternehmerisches Engagement, Partizipation und Widerstand in komplexen Beziehungen miteinander verwoben. Die Arbeit integriert auch einen historischen Rahmen in Anbetracht des früheren Salpeterabbaus in der Region und der Entwicklung der Chilenischen Ressourcenpolitik des 20. Jh. mit starken Einfluss auf die nationale Vorstellung vom Bergbau als grundlegende Wirtschaftstätigkeit für die nationale Entwicklung. Sowohl werden auch die Merkmale des chilenischen Neoliberalismus und die Rolle des Bergbaus anhand einer Extraktivismus Kritik behandelt.This study addresses the environmental, social, and territorial conflicts caused by mining in the Tarapacá region, whose problems are linked to environmental impacts and the general treatment of nature for profit and export. The study focuses on the confrontation between the state, indigenous communities, and mining companies and describes the many relationships and interconnections between them in nuanced terms. This work focuses on the various political, economic, institutional, and cultural elements associated with mining development and their consequences and interdependencies, which are described and illustrated in each chapter. In the context of national environmental regulations that seek to regulate the development of mining and other activities with significant environmental impacts, contemporary resource extraction generates certain agreements with local communities living near mining areas. The lack of agreements can lead to conflict and resistance from communities, and this could stop or delay specific mining projects with high investment costs. This way, institutions, corporate engagement, participation, and resistance become interwoven in complex relationships. The work also integrates a historical framework considering the former saltpeter mining in the region and the development of Chilean resource policies of the 20th century, with a strong influence on the national conception of mining as a fundamental economic activity for national development, discussing at large the characteristics of Chilean neoliberalism and the role of mining