ROBOPHILOSOPHY

July 25, 2026July 25, 2026

ICSR + Health 2027 at University of Potsdam

The 19th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Health 2027) will take place in July 2027 in Potsdam, Germany. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. Hosted by the University of Potsdam, ICSR + Health 2027 will provide an international platform for scientific exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation at the intersection of social robotics and health. The conference welcomes researchers, practitioners, industry partners, and students from around the world working in areas such as social robotics, embodied AI, human–robot interaction, cognitive science, healthcare, psychology, rehabilitation, design, ethics, and related disciplines. Participants will have opportunities to present their research, propose workshops or symposia, take part in the Grand Challenge, volunteer, or support the conference as sponsors. The General Chairs are Katharina Kühne of the University of Potsdam and the Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group (PECoG), Ilona Buchem of Berlin University of Applied Sciences (BHT), and Oliver Bendel of the FHNW School of Business (also associated researcher at the PECoG). The General Co-Chair is John-John Cabibihan of Qatar University. Further information, including calls for papers, workshops, the Grand Challenge, volunteering opportunities, sponsorship packages, registration details, and the exact conference dates, will be announced on the conference website: icsr2027.org.

July 25, 2026July 25, 2026

Celebration of the Daimler and Benz Foundation’s 40th Anniversary

The Daimler and Benz Foundation celebrated its 40th anniversary on July 24, 2026, with a festive event at the Carl Benz House in Ladenburg. Guests were welcomed at the entrance by Managing Director Dr. Jörg Klein and Chairman of the Board Prof. Dr. Lutz Gade. Information booths and poster presentations provided insights into the Foundation’s work and research activities. Throughout the event, Patricia Piekenbrock, a physicist and the Foundation’s communications officer, ensured that everything ran smoothly. The event would not have been possible without the dedication of Marion Hartmann and Monika Stulberg, who were responsible for its organization and execution. One of the first highlights of the celebration came when the actress portraying Bertha Benz took her seat in the Benz Patent-Motorwagen No. 3. This was followed by speeches from Prof. Dr. Lutz Gade and Olaf Schick, Member of the Board of Management for Integrity, Governance and Sustainability at Mercedes-Benz Group AG. The chemist, who teaches and conducts research at Heidelberg University and is a member of both the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, highlighted the Foundation’s support for research in areas including artificial intelligence, robot and machine ethics, as well as its funding of projects in Africa. Special recognition was given to the scientific members of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees: Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (FHNW School of Business), Prof. Dr. Hartmut Hillmer (University of Kassel), Prof. Dr. Ralf Poscher (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law), and Prof. Dr. Tereza Tykvová (University of St. Gallen). The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Dr. Dominika Wylezalek of Heidelberg University. Against the backdrop of academic freedom, she guided the audience through the millennia-long history of astronomy. Accompanied by a live band, the celebration continued well into the late evening.

July 23, 2026July 24, 2026

Terms and Concepts Introduced by Oliver Bendel

Since 2012, Oliver Bendel has introduced or significantly shaped a number of terms and concepts in academic discourse, particularly in the fields of machine ethics, social robotics, and the philosophy of technology. The Munchausen machine (Münchhausen-Maschine) refers to an immoral machine that systematically generates or disseminates falsehoods. The LIEBOT (LÜGENBOT) is a specific implementation of this concept. It is a chatbot conceived by Bendel and realized as a prototype that systematically tells lies. The project was used to explore the capabilities, risks, and ethical implications of deceptive dialogue systems. The reversed cyborg, also referred to as the inverted cyborg, describes the counterpart of the classical cyborg: instead of integrating technical structures into biological ones, it incorporates biological structures into technical ones. Robot enhancement refers to the deliberate extension and improvement of robots by adding sensory, motor, cognitive, or communicative capabilities and constitutes the counterpart to human enhancement. A wearable social robot is a social robot that is worn on the body or attached to clothing and accompanies its user through communication, assistance, or social interaction in everyday life. With “mythomorphic design”, Bendel describes an approach to robot design in which the models are drawn not from humans or animals but from figures found in mythology, fantasy, or science fiction. Animal-Machine Interaction (AMI) is a field of research and application that Bendel has significantly shaped, though he did not coin the term itself. It systematically examines interactions between animals and machines while addressing both technical and ethical issues. Its primary focus is the design and development of machines for interaction with animals rather than the study of animals themselves, extending to the creation of animal-friendly machines. Machine ethics also plays an important role in this field. The proxy machine with proxy morality is a concept in machine ethics according to which a machine acts as a moral proxy by executing moral rules defined by humans, without itself possessing consciousness or responsibility. Other important approaches in this field include annotated decision trees and morality menus (Photo: Jork Weismann).

July 21, 2026July 22, 2026

More Than Emotional Design

Most design is evaluated by how well it solves a problem. But some of the most memorable objects are not designed to maximize efficiency – they are designed to invite a relationship. Oliver Bendel believes this deserves its own name: Relational Object Design. Unlike Emotional Design, which focuses on how a product makes us feel, Relational Object Design focuses on the object itself as a potential relationship partner. Takashi Murakami’s Rumble-kun in a Jar is a beautiful example. The small axolotl-like creature sits quietly inside a transparent jar. It has no function, no movement, and no intelligence, yet it immediately feels alive. Its gentle expression and childlike proportions encourage us to care about it rather than simply look at it. The same philosophy can be found in the work of Yukai Engineering. Products such as Qoobo, Mirumi, and Nekojita FuFu are not primarily tools; they are companions with distinct personalities. Their value lies less in what they accomplish than in the emotional bond they encourage. This perspective also offers an interesting lens on social robotics. Robots such as AIBO, Eiliko, or Paro are often discussed in terms of artificial intelligence and social interaction, but perhaps the deeper question is simpler: what is the minimum amount of design required for a person to perceive an object as a companion? Murakami’s sculpture suggests that the answer may be surprisingly little. Sometimes a peaceful smile is enough.

July 11, 2026July 11, 2026

More News of the World

In 1977, Queen released the album “News of the World”. Its cover likely fascinated or disturbed many teenagers and adults at the time, a reaction that later found its way into popular culture – for example, in the animated sitcom “Family Guy”, where Stewie is terrified of it. The artwork depicts a gigantic humanoid robot holding two dead people in its right hand while blood drips from its left. Science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas had already used a similar motif in one of his earlier works. Brian May has repeatedly emphasized that “News of the World” represented a deliberate stylistic shift for the band – more direct, rawer, and more contemporary. The cover art clearly reflected that new direction. The guitarist has always been as passionate about science fiction as he is about the reality of outer space. In 2007, after a long interruption, he completed his Ph.D. at Imperial College London with a dissertation on interplanetary dust. A few months ago, he was interviewed for the book “RE:VIEW: Wozu die Menschheit retten? (RE:VIEW: Why Save Humanity?)”. The book’s first section features extensive ESA imagery from the AI-supported planetary defense mission Hera, complemented by works of AI-generated art. In the second section, Hera’s own AI system takes on the role of interviewer, conducting “thirty in-depth conversations with figures from the worlds of art, science, philosophy, and society” (publisher’s description, own translation). In addition to Brian May – who was thus able to discuss both science fiction and the reality of space – the interviewees include, among others, the world’s first female space tourist Anousheh Ansari, “Interstellar” visionary Paul Franklin, PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk, former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, science fiction author Andreas Eschbach, artist Jonathan Meese, and technology philosopher and machine ethics expert Oliver Bendel. The book is being published by We Mind Publishing in collaboration with the agency Jung von Matt. It is already listed on Amazon, where extensive information about the book is now available, and is scheduled for release in September 2026.

July 9, 2026July 9, 2026

Artificial Life and the Virtual Girlfriend

In 1999, Oliver Bendel moved from an institute in Trier to the University of St. Gallen, where he took a position as a project manager and doctoral researcher. At first, he planned to write his dissertation on learning and knowledge portals. However, he soon decided to pursue a different topic. From an early age, he had been fascinated by chatbots, voice assistants, and social robots. Some he knew from science fiction, while others he had encountered firsthand through observation and use. What fascinated him were not only the dialogue systems themselves, with which he had been experimenting since 1996, but also their visualizations and embodiments. He devoted his research to pedagogical agents – that is, chatbots, voice assistants, and AI agents in learning environments. He also examined emotion recognition systems and the earliest social robots. He devoted several pages to the company Artificial Life. Beginning in 1999, the company gained recognition with Einstein, an educational application distributed on CD-ROM. The chatbot was paired with a realistic-looking avatar that guided users through the life and work of the famous physicist from Ulm. At the beginning of the new millennium, the company made headlines again with another product: the Virtual Girlfriend for mobile phones designed for the then newly introduced 3G network. Users could care for her much like a Tamagotchi, which had been introduced a few years earlier, and they could buy her gifts – expensive ones, of course. For many years, she was available at v-girl.com. By that time, a number of companies had already discovered that users flirted with chatbots and their avatars, asking them how old they were, whether they had a boyfriend, and whether they were interested in a relationship. Artificial Life deliberately built on this phenomenon, creating an artifact that was as visionary as it was problematic, designed to foster profound emotional dependence within a one-sided relationship. Oliver Bendel later explored these issues in numerous journal articles and book chapters. In 2020, Springer Gabler published his book “Maschinenliebe (Machine Love)“. It summarized the state of research at the time on chatbots, love dolls, and sex robots.