Autonomy: A Family Resemblance Concept? An Exploration of Human-Robot Teams

Collins, Emily C, Ball, Brian, Helliwell, Alice C, Marble, Julie L and Baker, Joshua D (2023) Autonomy: A Family Resemblance Concept? An Exploration of Human-Robot Teams. In: Interdependent human-machine teams. The path to autonomy. Elsevier. (In Press)

Abstract

Embodied semi/autonomous systems (e.g., robots) have tremendous potential to improve the human experience, especially if they can be developed from tools and/or semi/autonomous interactive agents to become true collaborative teammates. But what exactly is required to achieve such autonomy in human-robot teams? Our interdisciplinary investigation in this paper is both empirical and conceptual. We argue that autonomous teams require an interdependence between teammates sharing an ultimate goal, and able to flexibly adopt and embrace intermediate goals in a manner that (empirically) requires both (social) intelligence (aka theory of mind) and (a limited form of) authenticity. This is (conceptually) compatible with robotic team members being autonomous only in an attenuated sense that bears a certain family resemblance to autonomy in humans.

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