Principal Investigator Sherry Turkle
The Robots, Creatures, and Human Identity group is an interdisciplinary collection of anthropologists, psychologists, historians, neuroscientists, artists, and roboticists who meet on a regular basis to discuss questions relating to robotics and human identity. Our research focuses primarily on children and the elderly and their relationship with digital dolls, robotic pets, and robotic creatures designed to be "relational artifacts,"artificial creatures that are designed to form social relationships. The primary question we seek to address is: how do robots and related technologies call into question contemporary notions of selfhood, identity, and community?