Embodied essentialism in the reconstruction of the animal sign in robot animal design

Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V..

Robot animals are important for the interpretation of the biological world. In this paper, I show that specific design solutions for robot animal signs usually privilege the overall perception of biological systems (and animal signs in general) as machinic entities, which ignores the role of identity self-generation and sustainability, the hallmark of biological signs. Animal signs are semiotic systems that operate roughly on three subsystems: affordance mapping (related with niche construction and embeddedness), essence categorization, displaying co-enabling relations within the animal system, and sensorimotor autonomy. Of these interrelated systems, the first two are commonly associated with robot animal design and conceptualization, whereas the third one suffers from the unsolved AI design problem of engineering true context-dependent sensitivity. As a result, a semiotic blindness toward biological organisms has derived in dissociated perceptions of robot animals as objects that emulate their biological counterparts through both biomorphic affordance design (biomorphism) and bioinspired task completion. Robot signs are thus confined to the realm of techno myths populating experimental settings narratives, which contributes to a diminishing awareness of biological diversity and animal uniqueness for the construction and preservation of the Umwelt.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:238

Enthalten in:

Bio Systems - 238(2024) vom: 14. Apr., Seite 105178

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Torres-Martínez, Sergio [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Animal signs
Biorobotic blending essence coefficient
Concept formation
Embodied essentialism
Journal Article
Machinic essentialism
Robot animals

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 12.04.2024

Date Revised 12.04.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105178

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM369800028