The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture

The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture provides a comprehensive discussion of how social robots take form, function, and meaning for individuals, relationships, cultures, and societies. Through a path-breaking integration of perspectives coming from sociology, communication and media, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, anthropology, political science, and science and technology studies, it focuses on the critical and social meaning of present developments in social robotic technologies. This book looks at artificial agents - from voice-based assistants to humanoid robots as their use transforms private and public contexts and gives rise to both new possibilities and new perils for human being and becoming, organizations as well as social structures and institutions. The handbook traces the consequences and key problems of social robotics across broad social contexts in both public and political as well as domestic and intimate spaces. Further, it attends carefully to the implications of social robotics for various human identity groups, including those based on gender, ethnicity, culture, class, ability, and age. Deep attention to interdisciplinarity, inclusivity, ethics, and socio-cultural futures serves as the guiding inspiration behind each contribution within this handbook.

Leopoldina Fortunati, University of Udine, Udine, Italy. Autumn Edwards, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA.