Robo-identity

Abstract

Interactive robots are becoming more commonplace and complex, but their identity has not yet been a key point of investigation. Identity is an overarching concept that combines traits like personality or a backstory (among other aspects) that people readily attribute to a robot to individuate it as a unique entity. Given people's tendency to anthropomorphize social robots, "who is a robot?"should be a guiding question above and beyond "what is a robot?"Hence, we open up a discussion on artificial identity through this workshop in a multi-disciplinary manner; we welcome perspectives on challenges and opportunities from fields of ethics, design, and engineering. For instance, dynamic embodiment, e.g., an agent that dynamically moves across one's smartwatch, smart speaker, and laptop, is a technical and theoretical problem, with ethical ramifications. Another consideration is whether multiple bodies may warrant multiple identities instead of an "all-in-one"identity. Who "lives"in which devices or bodies? Should their identity travel across different forms, and how can that be achieved in an ethically mindful manner? We bring together philosophical, ethical, technical, and designerly perspectives on exploring artificial identity.