Answer the following questions after reading Singer’s “Wired for War” selection , and Sauppe and Mutlu’s
Social Impact of Robot Co-Worker”

1. (a) In “Wired for War” , Singer argues that the use of autonomous technologies is leading to changes in how
people experience and understand war. He gives examples of soldiers’ experiences of the war zone and
people in it; their interactions and communications with each other; and their relationships with technology
(robots). Give an example of each of these 3 types of change from Springer and briefly discuss the potential
positive and negative consequences of such changes (1 paragraph per example).

(b) If you consider that autonomous and remotely operated technologies are entering other fields. such as
office work and health services. similar effects could change people’s experiences of their professional roles,
the people they are interacting with, and the technologies themselves? Pick a work domain (e.g. office, health)
in which remotely operated technologies are being applied and describe 2 effects that you think they might
have on workers in the domain.

2. (a) Sauppe and Mutlu discuss how robots in the position of co-workers are treated as social actors.
particularly focusing on aspects of the robot’s design and context that affected workers’ perceptions of and
interactions with the robot. Identify three of these design and contextual factors, and explain how they
affected the way in which people perceived and reacted to the robot.

(b) They suggest that robots can be designed and introduced in particular ways to make users more likely to
treat them as social actors. Can you think of occasions in which this kind of socialization of robots might be a
problem for the performance of the task? For example, Singer points to cases in which seeing the robot used
in war as a social actor impeded its functionality. Taking either your own example, or Singer‘s example as a
case, describe how you might design and introduce a robot so that it does not evoke ascriptions of sociality
from users? Do you think this is possible in cases in which robots and humans work together collaboratively,
rather than in those in which they are separated (e.g. typical factory)? Why or why not?

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