Are Robots People too? Groundwork for an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Despite the growing presence of artificial intelligence all around us, and the recent turn to the nonhuman in anthropology, there has not yet been studies exploring the potential for robots to be social agents. As a groundwork for an anthropology of artificial intelligence, my goal is to evaluate how new anthropological theoretical frameworks for understanding human entanglements with nonhumans can lead to a deeper knowledge of situations where humans and artificial intelligence interact. In the first chapter, I focus on artificial intelligence as an imitation of humans. I examine how this relation has led robots to replace primates as models for human nature, and the consequences this has for the various discourses about artificial intelligence entities. The second chapter looks more closely at the question of what it means to say that artificial intelligence might be a “social agent”. Finally, in the third chapter, I propose potential new approaches to studying the place of artificial intelligence, drawing from writings of the ontological turn where not only humans, but some nonhumans as well are viewed as persons.