Publications

Publication details [#45096]

Kanda, Takayuki, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Peter H. Jr. Kahn, Nathan G. Freier, Rachel L. Severson and Jessica Miller. 2007. What is a Human? Toward psychological benchmarks in the field of human–robot interaction. Interaction Studies 8 (3) : 363–390.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/is

Annotation

This paper moves toward offering psychological benchmarks to measure success in building increasingly humanlike robots. By psychological benchmarks this paper mean categories of interaction that capture conceptually fundamental aspects of human life, specified abstractly enough to resist their identity as a mere psychological instrument, but capable of being translated into testable empirical propositions. Nine possible benchmarks are considered: autonomy, imitation, intrinsic moral value, moral accountability, privacy, reciprocity, conventionality, creativity, and authenticity of relation. Finally, it is discussed how getting the right group of benchmarks in human–robot interaction will, in future years, help inform on the foundational question of what constitutes essential features of being human.