The Language of Robots: The quest for a human essence and the re-invention of ethics

Résumé

The present essay aims at investigating the elements and characteristics of robotic discourse within the context of a broader moral question about the nature of the relationship between humans and humanoids in the possible event of their future coexistence in society. Specifically, the data drawn consist of a Q&A session with Sophia the Robot, manufactured by Hanson Robotics, and are analysed in such a way in order for the sameness of the two ‘species’, humans and humanoids, to be highlighted. By locating certain discursive phenomena in Sophia’s discourse and fleshing out the underlying cognitive mechanisms that these phenomena presuppose when observed in humans, the sameness between humans and humanoids is illuminated as constructed in the intersubjective level of their linguistic interaction. The perplexed condition facing humans of simultaneously knowing and forgetting the otherness of their fellow humanoids allows for crucial ethical questions to be raised.