Human-Animal Analogy in Human-Robot Interaction

This paper focuses on the concept of the human being and anthropomorphism developed in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research. The underlying assumption is that robot users are often viewed as organisms who respond 'automatically' to anthropomorphic cues provided by the robotic systems rather than assign meanings to the robot's appearance and behaviour. This has fundamental consequences not only for how one conceives anthropomorphic robot design but also and above all for how one understands humanness. While one could expect that the human being will be compared to the machine, the underlying assumption in this paper is that such an approach is largely shaped by the human-animal analogy. Thus, this paper employs the symbolic interactionist perspective to discuss the main factors contributing to the analogies between humans and animals in HRI research. The ultimate goal is to challenge the human-animal analogy and the dehumanisation it generates in and outside the HRI field.