Call for Chapter Abstracts

Robots, Power, and Relationships

Editors: Julie Carpenter (Cal Poly), Francesca Ferrando (New York
University), Tony Milligan (Kings College London).
Abstracts are invited for an interdisciplinary volume on the social, ethical, and legal dimensions
of robotics.

The central theme of the volume:

This books primary theme will concern power and human relationships within the emerging
technological and social systems forming around situated human-robot interactions. For
example: Will the emerging social presence of robots alter the dynamics of human-human
relationships and/or introduce an entirely new set of human to non-human social and personal
dynamics? This area is receiving a growing level of popular and academic attention and the
volume aims to engage with popular representations and the emerging work in robot ethics.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

Intimacy
Gendered dynamics of power in sex with robots
Love and the machine
Domestic robots, or relationships with robots used in everyday home settings

Care

Robots used with ageing populations

Robot therapists and caregivers
Robots acting as childcare workers or educators
Robots in sex education

Culture
Real robots and cultural constructs
Robots, gender, and subordination
Ethics of designing humanlike robots for social situations
Designing robots to prevent a Singularity
Robots and a posthuman future
Ethics, and humans hardwiring their subjective ideas of ethical norms in AI and
robots
Asimovs Three Laws (adequate or inadequate) applied to human-robot social

relationships
Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the book, the editors welcome chapter abstracts
outlining original theory and research from authors from various areas of expertise. All submitted
abstracts should have a clear thesis, and be between 300-500 words. The volume publisher is to
be arranged, but the editors are looking at several publishers with a strong science and society
series. Authors may also be invited to participate in a special chapter formatted as an
interdisciplinary discourse on a topic relevant to the book theme. Deadline: send abstracts to
anthony.milligan@kcl.ac.uk by 1st October 2016.