Studies www.sti-studies.de On the Sociality of Social Robots A Sociology-of-Knowledge Perspective

Within the broad field of robotics, designers are working on the development of “social ” robots. Of interest in the context of artificial companionship is the type of bond between human beings and robotic artefacts that is not merely situation-spe-cific but rather cross-situational and that robotics researchers (and not only they) like to term a “social relationship”. As the boundary between humans and things is also questioned by social scientists who claim “agency ” and “as-if-intentionality” for advanced technology, the paper firstly recalls Thomas Luckmann’s reflections on the boundaries of the social world and qualifies companion robots as suitable vehicles to Cultural Worlds of Experience. After discussing sociology-of-technology approaches to this subject of research which to a certain extent ascribe sociality to advanced technology, the sociology-of-knowledge concepts objectivation and in-stitutionalization will be taken into account, with the help of which the status of technical artefacts such as robots in sociality can be located