Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Humans Enchanting Robots

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Enchanting Robots

Part of the book series: Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI ((SOCUSRA))

  • 647 Accesses

Abstract

The chapter addresses the question of humans enchanting robots in the sense that humans tend to perceive robots and think about them as more than just machines as a result of performing magical thinking. It explores the field of Human Robot Interactions and discusses a specific part of robot ethics controversies that seek to rethink our thinking about humans and robots. Next, it examines both classic and more recent anthropological, psychological, and philosophical accounts of magic to identify various analogies between magical thinking, on the one hand, and various phenomena diagnosed by HRI as well as some philosophical ideas regarding robots, on the other. In doing so, it analyzes the reevaluations of the status of magic and magical thinking from the second part of the nineteenth century to the present moment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Albas, D., & Albas, C. (1989). Modern Magic: The Case of Examinations. Sociological Quarterly, 30, 603–613.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartneck, C., van der Hoek, M., Mubin, O., & Al Mahmud, A. (2007a). “Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do!”: Switching Off a Robot. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 217–222). Washington, DC: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/1228716.1228746.

  • Bartneck, C., Verbunt, M., Mubin, O., & Al Mahmud, A. (2007b). To Kill a Mockingbird Robot. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 81–87). Washington, DC: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/1228716.1228728.

  • Bateson, G. (1999 [1972]). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berman, M. (1981). The Reenchantment of the World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bińczyk, E. (2004). Mowa magiczna a referencja. In A. Pałubicka & A. Dobosz (Eds.), Umysł i kultura (pp. 175–186). Bydgoszcz: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M. E. (1997). Thinkinq About Maqic. In S. D. Glazier (Ed.), Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchowski, M., & Burszta, W. J. (1986). Status języka w świadomości magicznej. Etnografia polska, 30(1), 31–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, J. (2016). Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces: A War Story. Surrey, Burlington: Ashgate.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E. (1955 [1946]). The Myth of the State. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E. (1960 [1925]). The Philosophy of Symbolic Form. Volume 2, Mythical Thought (C. W. Hendel, Trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E. (1972 [1944]). An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coeckelbergh, M. (2009). Personal Robots, Appearance, and Human Good: A Methodological Reflection on Roboethics. International Journal of Social Robotics, 1(3), 217–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-009-0026-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coeckelbergh, M. (2012a). Are Emotional Robots Deceptive? IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 3(4), 388–393. https://doi.org/10.1109/t-affc.2011.29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coeckelbergh, M. (2012b). Growing Moral Relations: Critique of Moral Status Ascription. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coeckelbergh, M. (2012c). Technology as Skill and Activity: Revisiting the Problem of Alienation. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 16(3), 208–230. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne201216315.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coeckelbergh, M. (2017). New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damisch, L., Stoberock, B., & Mussweiler, T. (2010). Keep Your Fingers Crossed! How Superstition Improves Performance. Psychological Science, 21(7), 1014–1020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610372631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darling, K. (2017). “Who’s Johnny?” Anthropomorphic Framing in Human-Robot Interaction, Integration, and Policy. In K. Abney, P. Lin, & G. A. Bekey (Eds.), Robot Ethics 2.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darling, K., Nandy, P., & Breazeal, C. (2015). Empathic Concern and the Effect of Stories in Human-Robot Interaction. In Proceeding of the IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Communication (ROMAN) (pp. 770–775). https://doi.org/10.1109/roman.2015.7333675.

  • Dobosz, A. (2002). Tożsamość metamorficzna a komunikacja językowa. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobosz, A. (2013). Myślenie magiczno-mityczne a schizofrenia. Bydgoszcz: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkeim, E., & Mauss, M. (1963 [1902]). Primitive Classification (R. Needham, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felson, R. B., & Gmelch, G. (1979). Uncertainty and the Use of Magic. Current Anthropology, 20(3), 587–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frazer, J. G. (2002 [1890]). The Golden Bough. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidenberg, O. (2004 [1978]). Image and Concept: Mythopoetic Roots of Literature. Oxon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freud, S. (1950 [1913]). Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, B., Kahn P. H. Jr., & Hagman, J. (2003). Hardware Companions? What Online AIBO Discussion Forums Reveal About the Human-Robotic Relationship. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 273–280). New York, NY: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garber, M. (2013, September 20). Funerals for Fallen Robots: New Research Explores the Deep Bonds That Can Develop Between Soldiers and the Machines that Help Keep Them Alive. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/funerals-for-fallen-robots/279861/. Accessed 25 July 2015.

  • Garreau, J. (2007, May 6). Bots on the Ground. The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009.html. Accessed 25 July 2015.

  • Gell, A. (1988). Technology and Magic. Anthropology Today, 4(2), 6–9. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gell, A. (1994). The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology. In J. Coote (Ed.), Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerdes, A. (2016). The Issue of Moral Consideration in Robot Ethics. Computers and Society, 45(3), 274–279. https://doi.org/10.1145/2874239.2874278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gmelch, G. (1971). Baseball Magic. Transaction, 8(8), 39–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood, S. (2009). The Anthropology of Magic. Oxford and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunkel, D. J. (2007). Thinking Otherwise: Philosophy, Communication, Technology. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunkel, D. J. (2010). The Real Problem: Avatars, Metaphysics and Online Social Interaction. New Media and Society, 12(1), 127–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809341443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunkel, D. J. (2012). The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gunkel, D. J., & Cripe, B. (2014). Apocalypse Not, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine. Kritikos, 11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallpike, C. R. (1979). The Foundations of Primitive Thought. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallpike, C. R. (2011). On Primitive Society: And Other Forbidden Topics. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanegraaff, W. J. (2003). How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World. Religion, 33(4), 357–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0048-721x(03)00053-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanegraaff, W. J. (2016). Magic. In G. Magee (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism (pp. 393–404). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (2000). The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ishiguro, H., Ono, T., Imai, M., Maeda, T., Kanda, T., & Nakatsu, R. (2001). Robovie: An Interactive Humanoid Robot. Industrial Robot: The International Journal of Robotics Research and Application, 28(6), 498–504. https://doi.org/10.1108/01439910110410051.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R. A. (2015). Personhood and Social Robotics: A Psychological Consideration. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn, P. H., Reichert, A. L., Gary, H. E., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Shen, S., & Gill, B. (2011). The New Ontological Category Hypothesis in Human-Robot Interaction. In 2011 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 159–160). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1145/1957656.1957710.

  • Kahn, P. H. Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Freier, N. G., Severson, R. L., Gill, B. T., & Shen, S. (2012). “Robovie, You’ll Have to Go into the Closet Now”: Children’s Social and Moral Relationships with a Humanoid Robot. Developmental Psychology, 48(2), 303. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027033.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kakar, S. (1978). Inner World: A Psycho-Analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India: Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and Society in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kmita, J. (1984a). Magiczne źródło kultury. Odra, 2, 24–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kmita, J. (1984b). Mowa magiczna—język—literatura. Odra, 12, 32–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski, A. P. (1999). Symbol w kulturze archaicznej. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski, A. P. (2001a). Myślenie przedfilozoficzne: studia z filozofii kultury i historii idei. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski, A. P. (2001b). O wyobrażeniu metamorfozy i o doświadczeniu magicznym w kulturze wczesnotradycyjnej. In J. Kmita (Ed.), Czy metamorfoza magiczna rekompensuje brak symbolu? (pp. 19–93). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski, A. P. (2013). Mit a piękno: z badań nad pochodzeniem sztuki. Bydgoszcz: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966 [1962]). The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy-Bruhl, L. (1975 [1949]). The Notebooks on Primitive Mentality (M. Leenhardt, Ed., P. Riviere, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy-Bruhl, L. (2015 [1910]). How Natives Think (L. A. Clare, Trans.). Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luria, A. R. (1976 [1974]) Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations (M. Lopez-Morillas & L. Solotaroff, Trans.). Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski, B. (1954 [1948]). Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (R. Redfield, Ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski, B. (1978 [1935]). Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands: Two Volumes Bound As One. New York: Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski, B. (1994 [1923]). The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages. In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (Eds.), The Meaning of Meaning (pp. 296–336). San Diego, New York and London: HBJ Book.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markle, D. T. (2010). The Magic That Binds Us: Magical Thinking and Inclusive Fitness. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 4(1), 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0099304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mauss, M., & Hubert, H. (2001 [1902]). A General Theory of Magic. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melson, G. F., Kahn, P. H. Jr., Beck, A., & Friedman, B. (2009a). Robotic Pets in Human Lives: Implications for the Human–Animal Bond and for Human Relationships with Personified Technologies. Journal of Social Issues, 65(3), 545–567.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melson, G. F., Kahn, P. H. Jr., Beck, A., Friedman, B., Roberts, T., Garrett, E., & Gill, B. T. (2009b). Children’s Behavior Toward and Understanding of Robotic and Living Dogs. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(2), 92–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2008.10.011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nemeroff, C., & Rozin, P. (1994). The Contagion Concept in Adult Thinking in the United States: Transmission of Germs and of Interpersonal Influence. Ethos, 22(2), 158–186. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1994.22.2.02a00020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nemeroff, C., & Rozin, P. (2000). The Making of the Magical Mind: The Nature and Function of Sympathetic Magical Thinking. In K. S. Rosengren, C. N. Johnson, & P. L. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific and Religious Thinking in Children (pp. 1–34). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oesterdiekhoff, G. W. (2009). Mental Growth of Humankind in History. Norderstedt: BoD–Books on Demand.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oesterdiekhoff, G. W. (2011). The Steps of Man Towards Civilization. Norderstedt: BoD—Books on Demand.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oesterdiekhoff, G. W. (2012). Was Pre-Modern Man a Child? The Quintessence of the Psychometric and Developmental Approaches. Intelligence, 40(5), 470–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oesterdiekhoff, G. W. (2014). The Role of Developmental Psychology to Understanding History, Culture and Social Change. Journal of Social Sciences, 10(4), 185–195. https://doi.org/10.3844/jssp.2014.185.195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pałubicka, A. (1984). Przedteoretyczne postaci historyzmu. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pałubicka, A. (2006). Myślenie w perspektywie poręczności a pojęciowa konstrukcja świata. Bydgoszcz: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pałubicka, A. (2013). Gramatyka kultury europejskiej. Bydgoszcz: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piaget, J. (2002 [1923]). The Language and Thought of the Child (M. Gabain & R. Gabain, Trans.). London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piaget, J. (2007 [1926]). The Child’s Conception of the World: A 20th-Century Classic of Child Psychology (J. Tomlinson & A. Tomlinson, Trans.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, K. (2016). Technological Animism: The Uncanny Personhood of Humanoid Machines. Social Analysis, 60(1), 110–128. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2016.600108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, J. (2017). Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rosengren, K. S., Johnson, C. N., & Harris, P. L. (Eds.). (2000). Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenthal-von der Pütten, A. M., Schulte, F. P., Eimler, S. C., Sobieraj, S., Hoffmann, L., Maderwald, S., et al. (2014). Investigations on Empathy Towards Humans and Robots Using fMRI. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 201–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.01.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheutz, M. (2011). The Inherent Dangers of Unidirectional Emotional Bonds between Humans and Social Robots. In P. Lin, K. Abney, & G. Bekey (Eds.), Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics (pp. 205–222). Cambridge and London: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sleeper-Smith, S., Barr, J., O’Brien, J. M., Shoemaker, N., & Stevens, S. M. (Eds.). (2015). Why You Can’t Teach United States History Without American Indians. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stivers, R. (2001). Technology as Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Styers, R. (2004). Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Subbotsky, E. (2010). Magic and the Mind: Mechanisms, Functions, and Development of Magical Thinking and Behavior. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Subbotsky, E. (2014). The Belief in Magic in the Age of Science. SAGE Open, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014521433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sung, J.-Y., Guo, L., Grinter, R. E., & Christensen, H. I. (2007). “My Roomba Is Rambo”: Intimate Home Appliances. In J. Krumm, G. D. Abowd, A. Seneviratne, & T. Strang (Eds.), Proceedings of UbiComp 2007: Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 145–162). Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74853-3_9.

  • Suzuki, Y., Galli, L., Ikeda, A., Itakura, S., & Kitazaki, M. (2015). Measuring Empathy for Human and Robot Hand Pain Using Electroencephalography. Scientific Reports, 5, 15924. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep15924.

  • Tambiah, S. J. (1990). Magic, Science and Religion and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (2006). A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship (AAAI Technical Report Series).

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (2010). In Good Company? On the Threshold of Robotic Companions. In Y. Wilks (Ed.), Close Engagements with Artificial Companions: Key Social, Psychological, Ethical and Design Issues (pp. 3–10). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S., Breazeal, C., Dasté, O., & Scassellati, B. (2006a). Encounters with Kismet and Cog: Children Respond to Relational Artifacts. Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication, 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S., Taggart, W., Kidd, C. D., & Dasté, O. (2006b). Relational Artifacts with Children and Elders: The Complexities of Cybercompanionship. Connection Science, 18(4), 347–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540090600868912.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tylor, E. (2010 [1871]). Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Werner, H. (2004 [1926]). Comparative Psychology of Mental Development. Clinton Corners, NY: Percheron Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poznań, Poland

    Maciej Musiał

Authors
  1. Maciej Musiał
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maciej Musiał .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Musiał, M. (2019). Humans Enchanting Robots. In: Enchanting Robots. Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12579-0_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation