Herrera C. & Sanz R. (2016) Heideggerian AI and the being of robots. In: Müller V. C. (ed.) Fundamental issues of artificial intelligence. Springer, Cham: 497–513.
Current Heideggerian AI (HAI) is the attempt to revise the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence based on Heidegger’s philosophy. While the debate is much monopolized with questions regarding the role of representations, there is overall agreement that HAI should be conceived to foster development of AI techniques, on the assumption that Heidegger’s ontological analysis of humans (Dasein) should apply to artificial systems. We argue this is inconsistent with Heidegger’s philosophy, as it denies ontological meaning to categories such as robot and human, considered the same type of beings. The aim of this paper is to steer HAI towards the question of our pre-ontological notions of artificial systems, and robots in particular. We present a provisional ontological analysis that considers robots specific, non-human and non-animal beings, which we derive from the relationship between robots and work. Robots are those machines that perform human labour – because in practice they can only transform it, their being is one that cannot be fulfilled.
Morse A. F., Herrera C., Clowes R., Montebelli A. & Ziemke T. (2011) The role of robotic modelling in cognitive science. New Ideas in Psychology 29(3): 312–324. https://cepa.info/7230
From the perspective of cognitive robotics, this paper presents a modern interpretation of Newell’s (1973) reasoning and suggestions for why and how cognitive psychologists should develop models of cognitive phenomena. We argue that the shortcomings of current cognitive modelling approaches are due in significant part to a lack of exactly the kind of integration required for the development of embodied autonomous robotics. Moreover we suggest that considerations of embodiment, situatedness, and autonomy, intrinsic to cognitive robotics, provide an appropriate basis for the integration and theoretic cumulation that Newell argued was necessary for psychology to mature. From this perspective we analyse the role of embodiment and modes of situatedness in terms of integration, cognition, emotion, and autonomy. Four complementary perspectives on embodied and situated cognitive science are considered in terms of their potential to contribute to cognitive robotics, cognitive science, and psychological theorizing: minimal cognition and organization, enactive perception and sensorimotor contingency, homeostasis and emotion, and social embedding. In combination these perspectives provide a framework for cognitive robotics, not only wholly compatible with the original aims of cognitive modelling, but as a more appropriate methodology than those currently in common use within psychology.