What Makes a Robot Robotic?

While the January 29 podcast of the Robots Podcast focuses on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—specifically, CyberQuad, a four-rotor hovering surveillance device by Cyber Technology—the end of the show is dedicated to a question about what constitutes a robot:

Have you ever wondered what a robot really is? Over coffee the other day we were trying to find a sleek and simple one size fits all definition for all the robots we’ve covered on the show from molecular robots to smart houses, humanoids or flying crawling and jumping robots. However, for every definition we came up with there was a counter example that either didn’t fit the definition or did although it wasn’t really what we think of as a robot.

The show will dedicate some time in every episode to modify a living definition of robot, subjecting new entries to the “counter-example” test until satisfied with the result.

Since I have to operationalize the term for my dissertation, this part of the bi-weekly podcast will be of great interest.

In search of a definition

The task isn’t an easy one. Most robotics researchers seem to take an “I know one when I see one” approach to a definition. The origin of the word (robota) firmly ties it to hard labor and a sub-class of humanity. This is reflected in the cultural perception of robots as servants, doing the vital things we humans no longer want to do.

Several official definitions (ISO, RIA, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster) agree that a robot is at least a manipulated machine that performs a work function. Excepting the low end of RIA’s spectrum of control, automation could also be part of the working definition.

Academics may not always articulate it, but a common definition may be implied whenever they self-associate a pet project with the term. A thorough review of the research literature is in order, but in the short-term, the low-hanging fruit is found in the Wikipedia’s article on the topic. It suggests the following considerations for refining the working criteria:

• electric powered
• reprogrammable
• automatically guided (able to do tasks on its own)
• aligning with cultural expectations (appearance and movement)
• an intent or agency of its own
• physical embodiment
• processes with environment (interacts with physical objects)
• human-inspired
• subordinate while superior

From the above list, the most compelling factors are the requirements to be situated in physical space and tied to humanity. A robot is not something virtual, operating only within a computer processor. It is material and interacts with material things, including people. Robots are also implicitly tied to their human counterparts, whether that be at the smallest scale (molecular) or the largest (societal). There is a philosophical question of superiority in play, but any good designer will argue that one can’t dictate use. The hierarchy of the human-robot relationship is one in flux.

That suggests my first attempt at a universal definition:

A robot is a physical machine manipulated to automatically perform an undesirable work function that supports a desired human outcome.

If you think you have a good answer to the question, “What is a robot?”, email a short definition to Robots Podcast with your phone number so that they can contact you on the air.