Introduction

Traditionally, robots are considered technological artifacts that act somewhat autonomously to serve and support people in various ways, from taking over dangerous, dirty, and dull tasks in working environments to providing care and company in social contexts. They are technology embodying the hegemonic narrative of progress that permeates our science, culture, and art. Lupetti introduces a broader socio-technical framing for robots championed in the book. This frame intends robots as artificial agents whose technological sophistication is intrinsically entangled with the rhetoric of automation and marvel. Within this frame, the book advocates for a disciplinary broadening of the field while - at the same time - communicating what human-robot interaction (HRI) has to offer to adjacent fields and dismantling preconceived ideas we hold about who should be entitled to shape robots and our futures with them. In this chapter, Lupetti summarizes the main frame and position of the book while providing a compass to navigate its 11 chapters, written to be a practical resource for all who design robots, not just those who are considered a “designer”.