Thoughts on Emotions and Personal Identity, part ii

What does Turkle mean when she calls robots “relational artifacts”?

Turkle defines the phrase “relational artifacts” early in her paper “A Nascent Robotics Culture:
New Complicities for Companionship,” as “technologies that have ’states of mind’ and where encounters with them are enriched through understanding these inner states.” I like to think of it as the interpretation of ’states of mind’ within a robot through our engagement, which is intended to simulate a mental state (and stimulate something within ourselves).

How do we understand ourselves in relation to others? Can a robot ever develop that kind of sense of self, or an inter-personal identity?

We interact with each other via “communication” - whether it be in person by using language or engaging in an activity, or through a device such as a cellphone or “text exchange” program (AIM, email, etc.). Communication transcends language too, as we can also interpret one’s mental state by facial expressions or body language. There are many indicators that a person can use to understand oneself in relation to others.*

* note: there are some very skeptical individuals (not to mention, solipsistic) who think that it is impossible to know whether another person actually exists, and is not some simulation intended to deceive (i.e. “the problem of other minds”). I think this has important implications for our interpretation of the mental states of robots.

Now, to answer the difficult question - can a robot ever develop interpresonal identity? In a word - no. My explanation is that the word “develop” means that they independently give rise to their own interpersonal identiy - which would not be true. Instead a robot could be designed to amass information based on its surroundings in very complicated, predefined ways that could eventually give rise to interpersonal identity. I guess the same could be said of us (humans that is) - we too are designed to give rise to interpersonal identity. Yet, I feel that any mental state of a robot would be a simulation (no matter how convincing), or a replication of our own mental states.