Folk-ontological stances toward robots and psychological human likeness

TL;DR

This paper explores how people's beliefs about the reality of robot minds influence their perception of robots' human-likeness, proposing a taxonomy of folk-ontological stances inspired by philosophical debates.

Contribution

It introduces a novel taxonomy of folk-ontological stances towards robots, linking philosophical concepts to human-robot interaction research.

Findings

People's ontological beliefs affect their perception of robot human-likeness.

A taxonomy of folk-ontological stances includes realism, non-realism, eliminativism, reductionism, fictionalism, agnosticism, and instrumentalism.

The paper advocates for a 'folk-ontological turn' in HRI research.

Abstract

It has often been argued that people can attribute mental states to robots without making any ontological commitments to the reality of those states. But what does it mean to 'attribute' a mental state to a robot, and what is an 'ontological commitment'? It will be argued that, on a plausible interpretation of these two notions, it is not clear how mental state attribution can occur without any ontological commitment. Taking inspiration from the philosophical debate on scientific realism, a provisional taxonomy of folk-ontological stances towards robots will also be identified, corresponding to different ways of understanding robotic minds. They include realism, non-realism, eliminativism, reductionism, fictionalism and agnosticism. Instrumentalism will also be discussed and presented as a folk-epistemological stance. In the last part of the article it will be argued that people's folk-ontological stances towards robots and humans can influence their perception of the human-likeness of robots. The analysis carried out here can be seen as encouraging a 'folk-ontological turn' in human-robot interaction research, aimed at explicitly determining what beliefs people have about the reality of robot minds.