Anthropology of Robots and A.I.- 070:161 (1.5 credits)

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Anthropology of Robots and A.I.- 070:161 (1.5 credits) Asynchronous Online - New lessons start Mondays (3/22-5/3)

Pilar K. Rau – [email protected] (Preferred method) Canvas Site: https://rutgers.instructure.com/courses/83176

Zoom Office hours: Fridays 1:00-5:00pm ET Google Hangout - [email protected] (add the app and use scarletmail for voice, IM, or video) GroupMe QR Code – shoot me a message. It can connect to Skype. We will also have a class GroupMe.

Course Description This course takes an anthropological approach to robotics, A.I., artificial life, and cyborgs. Focusing on ethnographic studies of robotics and A.I. labs in the U.S. and Japan. It introduces students to anthropological methods and theory and interrogates assumptions on kinship, personhood, gender, class, race, and religion. Does “culture” unconsciously affect ideas about humanity engineers encode into their creations? How can preexisting notions lead them to reproduce or challenge familiar social hierarchies in their visions of the future they attempt to create?

DEPARTMENT LEARNING GOALS http://anthro.rutgers.edu/undergrad-program/department-learning-goals CA1) Students gain knowledge that will allow them to identify, explain and historically contextualize the primary objectives, fundamental concepts, modes of analysis, central questions in their major field and demonstrate proficiency in their use of this knowledge CA2) Students are able to demonstrate proficiency in the use of critical thinking skills CA3) Students are able to demonstrate proficiency using current methods in their major fields, including library research skills CA4) Students are able to express themselves knowledgably and proficiently in writing about central issues in their major field CA5) Students are able to express themselves knowledgably and proficiently in speaking about central issues in their major field

COURSE SPECIFIC LEARNING OUTCOME GOALS 1. To become familiar with the key debates and methodologies in cultural anthropology [CA1] 2. To become familiar with Anthropological research methods 3. To stimulate critical thinking on the role of technology in society and of culture on technological innovation [CA2] 4. To critically analyze the politics of cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and class difference in STEM [CA2] 5. To conduct independent research, and communicate ideas effectively both orally and in writing. [Ca3,4,5]

TEXTBOOKS AND REQUIRED READINGS - All required readings are available on Canvas.

ABSENCES – Report absences here: https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/

ASSIGNMENTS

READING RESPONSE & DISCUSSION (top 5 grades * 13 pts each = 65%) - this grade is comprised of 2 parts 1) Your Reading response (10 points) and 2) Discussion (up to 8 points). We will have 7 discussions. o Reading Response – respond to weekly readings in Discussions the Friday *before* Monday’s class. This is a more formal

writing assignment than the “discussion.” Responses should directly engage with the readings. ~250 words o Discussion – demonstrate thoughtful engagement with your classmates’ Reading Response. Reply to at least 4

classmates. Due "in class" on Monday (11:59pm)

Lead discussion (10pts) – your group will serve as co-hosts and help the professor moderate the forum discussion. Feel free to kick off the discussion with an interesting media artifact, video clip, YouTube rant, or any other creative, attention-grabbing contribution. Meet with your group via Zoom, Skype, Gooogle Hangouts, WeChat etc.

Final presentation (10pts +5pts) – We will share our final paper ideas and offer each other feedback. 5 points for posing a final presentation –it can be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, youtube video, audio recording, or another medium you find appropriate. 1 point for each comment to a classmate (up to 5). Post on the last day of class 5/3. Finish replies by 5/6 in time for your classmates to incorporate your feedback into their final projects

Final paper or research proposal (10 pts) – Submit through Assignments by 5/9

Extra credit (5pts): review a film on Robots, Cyborgs, Androids, Automatons, Virtual Reality, Artificial Life, or Artificial Intelligence from the list. You may propose a film that is not yet on the list (5pts -up to 2x) Due 5/9

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ACADEMIC INTEGRITY - You are responsible for adhering to these policies: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu The university’s Academic Integrity Policy prohibits cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, denying others access to information or material, and facilitating dishonesty and violations of academic integrity. Familiarize yourself with the university’s standards and speak with a faculty member if you have concerns or questions. I encourage you to take a tutorial on plagiarism and academic integrity and consult the library’s tip sheet on how to take notes to avoid accidental plagiarism. A student who plagiarizes any portion of an assignment will receive a zero on it and be referred to the university’s board to assess additional sanctions Tutorial: http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/douglass/sal/plagiarism/intro.html Tip sheet: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/lib_instruct/instruct_document.shtml

COURSE COMMUNICATIONS - I will contact you personally via Canvas Inbox. Unlike Canvasi, Canvas won’t send you an email copy unless you adjust settings to do so. You are welcome to send me an email so that I have your email too. Course updates posted in Canvas. I recommend downloading the Canvas and Zoom Apps to your smart phone or tablet too. Over the past few semesters, students have gotten me to use the GroupMe app, so I’ve included my QRcode. If there is a new app that all the students are using, please let me know. You can call, SMS, or video chat me via the Googlehangout app (part of your scarletmail account) or use Skype through GroupMe during my office hours. All of these are listed at the top of the syllabus and in Contact Info in Canvas.

STUDENT-WELLNESS SERVICES:

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students’ efforts to succeed at Rutgers University. CAPS offers a variety of services that include: individual therapy,

group therapy and workshops, crisis intervention, referral to specialists in the community, and consultation and

collaboration with campus partners.

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The Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance provides confidential crisis intervention, counseling and

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receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, a student with a disability must contact the appropriate disability

services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide

documentation: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines. If the documentation supports your request

for reasonable accommodations, your campus’s disability services office will provide you with a Letter of

Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in

your courses as possible. To begin this process, please complete the Registration form on the ODS web site at:

https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/registration-form.

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READING SCHEDULE

Week 1 (due 3/22): INTRO

Fantasies of mechanical men were with us long before actual robots existed. In 1920, playwright Karel Capek, used the Slavic word, “robot” (forced worker) to describe mechanical men in his dystopian vision of labor. In contrast, in Edo Japan (1600-1867), clockwork automata were embraced as sources of wonder. Today, robotics, cybernetics, and AI enhance our daily lives. They maintain our homes, produce our commodities, make shopping recommendations, and monitor our health. Anthropological approaches to science and technology as “culturally constructed” and human diversity in general have the potential to positively impact these developments. But what IS ethnography? What do anthropologists do?

Key words: Anthropology, ethnography, cultural relativism, participant observation, artificial intelligence, robotics

Read: Intro to course. View: Ibañez, Gabe. 2014. Automata.

Recommended (not required) Capek, K. 1921. R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

*Graded* Personal Bio - (In Module 1 > Class Bios (*Graded* discussion) (due 3/22)

Study Group discussion assignment (In Module 1 > Study Group (*Graded* discussion) (due 3/29)

Film reaction view the film and immediately write your reaction. (due 3/22)

**(this week only, your Reading Response & Discussion consists of a film reaction and Icebreakers)**

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Week 2 (due 3/29): PRODUCING KINSHIP IN A ROBOTICS LAB –A U.S. EXAMPLE

Richard’s ethnography of a U.S. Robotics lab examines the worldviews and assumptions about being human that robotics engineers encode in their social robots, as well as the social lives of those engineers. Do their unconsciously held beliefs about and idiosyncratic experiences with humankind inform their assumptions about human sociality and what social robots could be? What are possible consequences of unexamined value and beliefs on technologies that will affect human social hierarchies? Can anthropological frameworks help understand human-robot sociality? This week’s lecture will introduce students to anthropological ideas of kinship, focusing on cases that challenge the ideal of the modern, heteronormative, nuclear family in order to reflect on how the diversity of forms of relatedness could inform social robotics and AI.

Keywords: personhood, kinship, Actor-network theory (ANT), sex and gender, social hierarchy, nuclear family, heteronormative, matrilineal/patrilineal/bilateral, matriarchal/patriarchal, avunculate

Read: Richardson, Kathleen. 2015. An Anthropology of Robots and AI: Annihilation Anxiety and Machines. Routledge Intro, Chapter 1 “Revolutionary Robots” (1-20, 24-37) Chapter 3 “Social Robots” (60-74) Chapter 4 “The Gender of the Geek” (77-89) Chapter 5 “The Dissociated Robot” (92-109)

Recommended but not required Forsythe, D. 2002. Chapter 11 “Disappearing Women in the Social World of Computing.” Studying Those Richardson. Chapter 2 “Out of Body Minds” 39-59 Richardson’s home page www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/academic-staff/technology/kathleen-richardson/kathleen-richardson.aspx I

*Graded* Friday 3/26 - Film/reading response.

Friday 3/26 -Monday 3/29: Class Discussion

Week 3 (due 4/5): TECHNOLOGY AS CULTURE

Although technology is often seen as “value-free,” anthropological perspectives focusing on the actual people creating and using technology suggest products embody their builder’s unexamined assumptions, values, and beliefs –that technology has a cultural dimension. Forsythe is a pioneering anthropologist who conducted extended fieldwork among artificial intelligence (AI) expert communities. She gathered data through interviewing (without necessarily always taking what they say at face value), spending time with, and observing them. This research presents interesting challenges to the power relations inherent in both anthropological and STEM research, as neither has been accustomed to being challenged by peers of a different field.

Keywords: ethnography, methodology, anthropological ethics, participant observation, emic and etic description, qualitative and quantitative, Science and Technology Studies (STS), power relations, studying up

Read: Forsythe, D. 2002. Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. UC Chapter 2. “The Construction of Work in Artificial Intelligence.” (16-34) Chapter 8. “Ethics and Politics of Studying Up in Technoscience” (119-131)

An anthropologist argues with an Engineer. Chapter 3. “Engineering Knowledge: The Construction of Knowledge in Artificial Intelligence.” (35-58) Chapter 4. “Knowing Engineers? A response to Forsythe by James Fleck” (59-65) Chapter 5. “STS (Re)constructs anthropology: Reply to Fleck” (66-74)

Recommended. Nader, Laura. “Up the Anthropologist.” (This article coins the term “studying up”)

*Graded* Friday 4/2 - Film/reading response.

Friday 4/2 -Monday 4/5: Class Discussion

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Week 4 (due 4/12): REAL-LIFE ROSIE THE ROBOT –A JAPANESE EXAMPLE

Japanese humanoid robots for use in homes, hospitals, offices, and schools are celebrated in the media. Robertson’s ethnography and sociocultural history of government and academic discourses of human-robot relations explores how actual humanoids, androids, animaloids are imagineered in ways that reinforce conventional sex/gender and political-economic hierarchies.

Keywords: Sex, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, social hierarchy

Read: [selection] Robertson, J. 2017. Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, gender, family and the Japanese nation. UC Press

Recommended: [selection] Berthin, M. 2014. Touch future x ROBOT: Examining production, consumption and disability at a social

robot research laboratory and a centre for independent living in Japan. PhD thesis, LSE Fausto-Sterling, A. “5 Sexes” and “5 Sexes revisited” Stephens, L. 2002. “Sexualities & Genders in Zapotec Oaxaca” Latin Am Perspectives. 123 29:2. 41-59.

*Graded* Friday 4/9 - Film/reading response.

Friday 4/9 -Monday 4/12: Class Discussion

Week 5 (due 4/19): LOVE AND SEX WITH ROBOTS –A DEBATE

Anthropologist Kathleen Richardson and AI expert, David Levy, represent two opposing camps in scholarship on human-robot relationships. Richardson is active in the “Campaign against Sex Robots” while Levy and his cohort argue in favor of the possibilities of future conjugal relationships with robots. We will contextualize these debates in anthropological ideas on marriage alliances

Keywords: Sex, gender, sexual orientation, gynoids (aka fembots), personhood, kinship, caste, agency

Read: TBA Reecha Das on inter-caste relationships in India TBA. Richardson, K. on the campaign against Sex Robots Podcast: Robertson, J.2009 “Gendering Robots: Posthuman Sexism in Japan” MIT Robertson, J. 2010. “Gendering Humanoid Robots: Robo-Sexism in Japan.” Body and Society. 16:2. 1-36.

Levy, David. 2017“Why not marry a robot?” Keynote talk Love and Sex with Robots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl-IdfzWBfo

Levy, David. Love and Sex with Robots. (2007) Levy, D. “Sex Robots, Yes! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx5L2LAJUSE –rebuttal to Richardson Kazi, P. 2017. Humans and robots can have babies, claims AI expert IBI Times.

Popular Press “Ex-Machina has a serious Fembot Problem.”www.wired.com/2015/04/ex-machina-turing-bechdel-test/ 2016. “Are Sex Robots Unethical or Just Unimaginative as Hell? Jezebel. Recommended: [selection] Ed. Ceok, A. et al. 2016. Love and Sex with Robots:2nd International Conference. LSR Choi, Charles Q. “Humans Marrying Robots? A Q&A with David Levy” Scientific American. Feb 19 2007.

*Graded* Friday 4/16 - Film/reading response.

Friday 4/16 -Monday 4/19: Class Discussion

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Week 6 (due 4/26): THE CYBORG SUBLIME

Will the intelligent humanoid robots of the future be terrifying or beautiful? Cute or uncanny? Will they annihilate the human race or will their ego-less Buddha nature help us? Do the ways engineers imagine the innate “nature” of robots/AI reflect cultural anxieties and religious beliefs? Do the ideas of disembodied intelligence and laboring robot bodies reproduce a cartesian mind-body duality? We will examine ideas enshrined in the US, Japanese, and Indian robotics industries. We will look at “disgust” and the “uncanny” as affective manifestations of crossing of culturally-defined categories and recent trends in anthro theory that use the “cyborg” to challenge the boundaries between “people” and “things” characteristic of Western modernity.

Keywords: anthropology of religion, symbolic anthropology, eschatology, uncanny, disgust, gothic, structuralism, cyborg, modern, mythology

Read:

Group 1: Astro Boy versus the Robot Apocalypse Geraci, R. 2012. Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality Oxford Mori, Masahiro. 1970. “The Uncanny Valley.” Energy. 7:4, pp. 33-5 *OR* 1989. The Buddha in the Robot.

Group 2: AI and Religion in India Geraci, R. 2019. “Religious Ritual in a Scientific Space: Festival Participation and the Integration of Outsiders.” Science,

Technology, & Human Values 44:6: 965–93. Geraci, R. 2016. “A tale of two futures: Techno-eschatology in the US and India.” Social Compass. 63:3 Thomas, R. and Geraci. 2018. “Religious Rites and Scientific Communities: Ayudha Puja as ‘Culture’ at the Indian Institute of

Science” Zygon 53:1 95–122 recommended Douglas, M. Purity and Danger. Freud, S. 1919. The Uncanny. Latour, B. We Have Never Been Modern. Haraway, D. 1991. Simians, Cyborg, and Women. Hayles, K. 1999. How We Became Posthuman. Jentsch, E. 1906. “On the Psychology of the Uncanny.” Kristeva, J. 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection Borody, W. 2013. “Japanese Roboticist Masahiro Mori’s Buddhist Inspired

Concept of The Uncanny Valley” J. of Evolution and Technology.23:1 Dec. 31-44

Helmreich, S. 1998. “Concerning the Spiritual in Artificial Life.” Silicon Second Nature.

Press: Pham, S. 2017. “Elon Musk backs call for global ban on killer robot.”

CNN Clifford, C. 2017. “Head of A.I. at Google slams the kind of AI apocalypse fear-

mongering Elon Musk has been doing.” CNBC -- “Warren Buffett Bill Gates think it’s crazy to view job-stealing robots as bad”

*Graded* Friday 4/21 - Film/reading response.

Friday 4/21 -Monday 4/26: Class Discussion

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Week 7 (due 5/3): DO ROBOTS HAVE RIGHTS?

Can robots be “people” too? Robertson interrogates the idea of “human exceptionalism” as she considers whether “civil rights” should be granted to robots. Others ask if intelligent robots are morally competent to be judged for crimes. We explore the anthropological idea of “personhood” and the conditions under which we extend it to non-humans

Keywords: personhood, human rights, sentient being, volition

Read: Robertson, J. 2017. “Robot rights vs Human rights.” Robo sapiens Malle, BF. 2014. “Moral competence in social robots.” Sociable Robots: The Future of Social Relations. IOS Press. 189-98 (fiction)TBA. Asimov, I. on 3 laws of robotics “I, Robot.” Outer Limits. 1964 Season 2:9. (based on E. Binder “The Trial of Adam Link” (sentient robot on trial for murder)

WRAP UP: ANTHROPOLOGICAL & QUASI-ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES

As other disciplines recognized the value of value and institutionalize their own kinds of ethnographic research, Forsythe and Bell address misconceptions, explaining why quasi-ethnographic research is “superficial and unreliable,” making a case for long-term ethnographic research by trained anthropologists

Read: Forsythe, D. 2002. Ch 10. “It's Just a Matter of Common Sense: Ethnography as Invisible Work.” Studying Those…. Bell, Genevive. 2016. “Why Microsoft needs anthropologists” The Guardian. 27 Nov. Bell is an anthropologist in AI research: “The next wave of AI is rooted in human culture and history”

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2015/02/black-white-shiny-all-over-robots-in.html

*Graded* Friday 4/30 - Film/reading response

Friday 4/30 -Monday 5/3: Class Discussion

Final presentations – post in discussions by Monday. Reply by 5/3 11:59pm ET

Final papers and all extra credit due 5/9 by 11:59pm in Canvas