Background

In Cultural Robotics (2016) we anatomized the topic of Cultural Robotics in four ways; Robots as Maintainers of Culture, Robots as Participants in Culture, Robots as Producers of Culture, and speculation concerning the Advent of Robotics Culture, as a means of defining the spectrum of integration between robots with human culture and beyond. Within this publication, it was concluded that social robots would soon advance beyond interactive embodied entities, to social agents with meaningful cultural impact on a range of human communities and activities, with the potential means to create a culture that might be entirely foreign and incomprehensible to human culture.

In the second installment of Cultural Robotics (2023), we advanced upon the demonstrated integration of robotics deeply into many aspects of human activity and culture, and approached cultural robotics as a political ecology of social robotics: that is, a lens for analyzing the far-reaching impacts of the integration of robots into the human lived experience. We defined ‘political ecology’ as the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes; in this context, we view the ‘environment’ as the human social sphere.

This third installment and second workshop on Cultural Robotics aims to bring together diverse cultural perspectives to explore how robotics development can effectively integrate sustainability and circular economy principles (knowledge sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials) to foster environmentally responsible and socially inclusive innovation when prototyping, testing and developing social robots.

Motivation

The use of the term Cultural Robotics was first explored in depth by Hooman Samani et al. [1], who attributed the development of culture in robotics to the cultural values of the designers, the importance of embodiment in robotics, and the current (and potential) learning capacity of robots. Samani et al. proposed the potential progression of robots from simple tools, to luxury items, to members of human society and projected that they would one day become an integral part of our culture. In 2015, Dunstan and Koh, together with David Silvera-Tawil, held a workshop at IEEE RO-MAN in Kobe, Japan, which called for contributions attending to what was a relatively new premise: in what ways are social robots participants in, and creators of, culture? The contributions from over fifteen different countries yielded surprising breadth and depth, which signified a growing interest in the influence and contributions of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) to culture, as well as the influence of human cultures on the design and applications of social robots. The research presented at the 2015 workshop was brought together and published as a collection of works entitled Cultural Robotics [2]. In the opening chapter of this book, Dunstan et. al. described how robots could not only be maintainers of and participants in human culture but could also have the potential to develop their own culture, entirely unrecognisable to humans.

Revisiting this field in 2023, Dunstan et al. edited a book entitled Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and their Emergent Cultural Ecologies [3] offering a new lens for examining the reach of social robotics, that of a cultural ecology, where consideration for the broader political, economic, and social factors impacted by this field become inseparable to the evaluation of it.  They argued for the development of social robotics to be increasingly informed by community-led transdisciplinary research, to be decentralised and democratised, shaped by teams with a diversity of backgrounds, informed by both experts and non-experts, and tested in both traditional and non-traditional platforms.

Looking forward in the field of Cultural Robotics, we now hope to draw on the many diverse cultural robotics practices we have seen evidenced within this previous work, to collaboratively share methods for inclusive sustainability and longevity in robotics development.

Workshop Format

The half-day workshop will include presentations from a highly international group of researchers, spanning the widest possible scope of cultural diversity. Following our previous two publications (Springer 2016, 2023) in the space of Cultural Robotics, the workshop will culminate in a publication of proceedings contributing to a strong legacy of dissemination on the topic.

The workshop will begin with keynote speech on sustainability and robotics prototyping by Associate Professor Jeffrey Koh, Head of Design Factory at the Singapore Institute of Technology. Following the keynote speech, a hands-on workshop will focus on lean-design principles for planning and puppeteering expressive robotic movement from recycled materials, facilitated by Belinda J Dunstan, followed by a break, networking and gallery walk of the accepted poster submissions.

In the second half of the workshop, three selected submissions will be presented in a lightning round of talks, followed by a panel discussion, after which the workshop will close with an announcement of a publication opportunity and guidelines.

Target Audience / Prerequisites

The half-day workshop will welcome submissions from a highly international group of researchers, spanning the widest possible scope of cultural diversity, including but not limited to, engineers, designers, artists, researchers, educators, and professionals from related fields who are passionate about driving forward-thinking and responsible robotics innovations. No prerequisites.

Dissemination & Documentation of the Workshop

We have received confirmation from Springer LNCS that they are willing to publish the proceedings of the workshop based on our previous track record for dissemination. For an example of our previous workshop proceedings, please refer to the following link:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-42945-8

Submission Guidelines & Deadlines

• Authors should submit an A0 poster of their submission as PDFs to culturebots@gmail.com by February 10th, 2025 @ 23:59 GMT +0.

• Authors will receive notification of acceptance via email by February 17th, 2025.

• Accepted posters will be shared via the CultureBots.org website for pre-reading by workshop participants.

• Authors must print their posters and bring them to the workshop for gallery walk-styled presentations.

• 3 of the submissions will be selected for 10 minute presentations and inclusion into the panel discussion portion of the workshop.

• Accepted submissions will be welcomed to develop short and full papers based on their presented research for publication in Springer LNCS after the workshop, with deadlines for camera-ready submissions announced at the workshop.

References

[1]     Samani, H., Saadatian, E., Pang, N., Polydorou, D., Fernando, O.N.N., Nakatsu, R. and Koh, J.T.K.V., Cultural robotics: The culture of robotics and robotics in culture. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 10(12), 2013, p.400.

[2]     Koh, J. T. K. V., Dunstan, B.J., Silvera-Tawil, D. and Velonaki, M., Cultural robotics. In First international workshop, CR. Springer, 2015.

[3]     Dunstan, B. J., Koh, J. T. K. V., D. T. Tillman, & S. A. Brown (Eds.). Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and Their Emergent Cultural Ecologies. Springer International Publishing. 2023.