Robot Citizenship: A Design Perspective

This paper suggests robot citizenship as a design perspective for attending to the sociality of humanrobot interactions (HRI) in the near future. First, we review current positions regarding robot citizenship, which we summarize as: human analogy, nonhuman analogy and socio-relationality. Based on this review, we then suggest an understanding of citizenship that stresses the socio-relational implications of the concept, and in particular its potential for rethinking the way we approach the design of robots in practice. We suggest that designing for robot citizenship (in the terms suggested by this paper) has the potential of fostering a shift from a logic of functionality to one of relationality. To illuminate the direction of this shift in design practice, we include and discuss three robot concepts designed to address and rethink present HRI challenges in the urban environment from a relational perspective.