The Ambiguity of Robot Rights

The prominence of robots as interdependent social agents continues to grow, leading to important conversations about legal and ethical considerations not just for humans, but also potentially for these autonomous agents (e.g., robot rights). Physical properties of the robot form factor have been shown to significantly impact human interactions with the system, including how law and policy-makers see and ascribe characteristics to it. For social robots in particular, an anthropomorphized or humanoid form factor can lead to assumptions about the robot’s personhood, with potentially harmful ethical consequences. In this paper, we review current outlooks on social robots with regards to policy and personhood, particularly limits of current debates. We then provide a suggested redefinition of personhood for a robot with an emphasis on the dissociation of personhood from the humanoid form. We propose the treatment of robot personhood in terms of as interdependent group personhood rather than physical or anthropomorphic features, and suggest corresponding design principles and regulations about features such as system opacity.