Robotic Animism: The Ethics of Attributing Minds and Personality to Robots with Artificial Intelligence

In Tiddy Smith, Animism and Philosophy of Religion. Springer Verlag. pp. 313-340 (2022)
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Abstract

In this chapter, I use the expression “robotic animism” to refer to the tendency that many people have to interact with robots as if the robots have minds or a personality. I compare the idea of robotic animism with what philosophers and psychologists sometimes refer to as “mind-reading”, as it relates to human interaction with robots. The chapter offers various examples of robotic animism and mind-reading within different forms of human-robot interaction, and it also considers ethical and prudential arguments for and against attributing minds and a personality to robots. In the last section of the chapter, I also consider the intriguing question of whether any robots that exist today could be said to have some sort of minds in some non-trivial sense.

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Sven Nyholm
LMU Munich

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Self‐Deception in Human–Sex Robot Intimacy.Jin Hee Lee & Christina Chuang - 2025 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 42 (1):303-319.

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