Robots and Human Sociality: Normative Expectations, the Need for Recognition, and the Social Bases of Self-Esteem

It has been argued that human sociality has an intrinsically normative grammar: not only do norms guide our own behaviour, we have normative expectations concerning the way others behave, including how they take and treat us. These expectations shape our experiences concerning the social world. This paper explores three theses: 1) The normative grammar need not be a matter of "commitments". 2) While we need to operate in the "intentional stance" in interaction with robots, to implement a fully "personifying" stance would be a category mistake. Social robots form a new category, new vaguely demarcated "social grammar", with genuine normative expectations and experiences. Rewarding experiences caused by responses from robots need not be deceptive, although taking a fully "personifying stance" would be deceptive: the dichotomy between full persons and mere things is too coarse. 3) Recognition from others is central in the social basis of self-esteem. Feedback from robots is an interesting combination of objective non-social feedback and some kind of simulated recognition: robots can send real recognitive messages even when they themselves are not recognizers.