The central question of this paper is not whether Embodied Digital Technologies (EDTs) are to be understood as social actors by analogy with humans. The question is rather how the contingency of machine behavior is communicatively processed in design and how the mechatronics of machines is transformed into a socially accountable shape. To describe the contingency of machine behavior, we draw on Heinz von Foerster’s concept of the non-trivial machine. To discuss the actor status of machines, we use the concept of “social frameworks” developed by Erving Goffman: While “natural frameworks” aim at a technical control of environmental phenomena, social frameworks operate with displays and expectations of behavior in order to provide orientation and to gain influence. Goffman’s concept of social frameworks leads to the possibility of identifying different types of non-human, technically developed social actors. Each of these types is—as our comparative study shows—characterized by a different principle of organizing the relationship between man and machine.