Michael Funk

• Doctor of Philosophy
• University Assistant (Post Doc) at University of Vienna

In this contribution to the Robophilosophy 2024 conference, I undertake a rereading of Michael Polanyi’s 1958 publication, Personal Knowledge. A particular emphasis will be placed on the examination of contemporary challenges pertaining to robotics and AI Ethics. The terms “personal knowledge” and “tacit knowledge” are essentially synonymous. Both...

The concept of embodiment (i.e. of a bodily basis) of human cognition has a long history in philosophy and nowadays develops a growing impact on humanoid robotics. There, inspirations often aim at mimicking human skills and achieving friendly and fruitful human-robot interaction (HRI). This article considers as an example the embedding of the sense...

IntroductionSocial robots are accompanied by high expectations of what they can bring to society and in the healthcare sector. So far, promising assumptions have been presented about how and where social robots are most relevant. We know that the industry has used robots for a long time, but what about social uptake outside industry, specifically,...

Social Robotics is one of the most innovative fields in robotics research. However, the current struggle for an adequate definition of “social robots” leads, a.o., to different interpretations for the status of this innovativeness. With respect to the recently emerging idea of a Digital Humanism, these controversies are of importance since the co-c...

Es herrscht weitgehende Einigkeit darüber, dass sich aktuelle Technologien wie Machine Learning oder Künstliche Neuronale Netzwerke der schwachen KI-These zuordnen lassen. Die Imitation universeller menschlicher Fähigkeiten oder gar deren allumfassende Übersteigerung entspricht nicht der (aktuell absehbaren) Realität. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird in...

Drohnen zählen heute weitläufig zu den Robotern oder Robotic Systems. Sie weisen häufig vergleichbare Teilgrade technischer Autonomie auf, verfügen über Sensoren und zumindest Aktuatoren zum Antrieb. Diverse standardisierte informationsverarbeitende oder mechatronische Komponenten werden in Drohnen wie auch in anderen Robotern verbaut. Am ehesten l...

Standen in den ersten beiden Bänden der Reihe Grundlagen der Technikethik die Begriffe, Prinzipien, Methoden und Verfahrensformen der Ethik im Mittelpunkt, so wendet sich vorliegender dritter Band einem in sich geschlossenen Themenfeld zu: Robotern und KI als soziale Herausforderungen. Voraussetzung ist ein möglichst klares Bild der zu besprechende...

Künstliche Intelligenz und Robotik laden in besonderem Maße zur Projektion von Hoffnungen und Zukunftsvisionen ein. Die Idee denkender Maschinen hat Generationen von Forscherinnen begeistert. Alan Turing formulierte hierfür eigens seinen berühmten Turing-Test. Auf der anderen Seite ist universelle KI bis heute nicht realisiert. Umso wichtiger ist e...

Allgemeine und spezielle Roboterdefinitionen werden meistens hinsichtlich Funktion, Gestalt oder Nutzen vorgenommen. Zunehmend gewinnt jedoch eine andere Kategorie an Bedeutung, die auch zu den Markenzeichen kollaborativer industrieller Roboter (Cobots) gehört: Interaktion. So lassen sich grob Mensch-, Tier-, und Pflanze-Roboter-Interaktionen unter...

Obwohl häufig von Robotik als „verkörperter KI“ gesprochen wird, meinen beide Begriffe nicht das Gleiche. KI stellt eine wesentliche Softwarekomponente im Betrieb von Robotern und Drohnen dar. Gleiches gilt für Computer, vom Businessnotebook bis hin zum privaten Smartphone. Aus technischer Sicht lassen sich diverse Verfahren unterscheiden und wiede...

Welche methodischen Wege lassen sich in der angewandten Technikethik gehen? Top-down und bottom-up, jeweils logisch ableitend und analogisch vergleichend, ergeben sich vier Optionen für eine einzelfallbezogene Kasuistik. Die gradualistische Stufung ethischer Urteilsbildung ist zu berücksichtigen wie auch die Trennung normativer und deskriptiver Wor...

Human-technology relations gain a specific interest in the philosophy of technology. Recently these relations have been challenged by ecological problems – concerning climate change and natural environments – as well as privacy – concerning the fair use of personal data and information protection. Both aspects stand for existential relations that b...

Vorliegendes Kapitel fasst Aufgaben und Bereiche der Roboter- und KI-Ethik zusammen. Ethik sollte kein elitäres Privileg sein, für das eine akademische Berechtigung vorzulegen wäre. Dennoch wird sie in unterschiedlichen Kontexten professionell angewendet, z. B. in der rationalen Technikfolgenabschätzung. Neben Politikberatung und Risikoabschätzung...

The use of robots in combination with artificial intelligence (AI) is a trend with the promises to relieve humans from difficult-, time consuming- or dangerous work. Intelligent robots aim to solve tasks more efficiently, safer or partly more stable. Independent of the domain-specific challenge, the configuration of both (a) the robot and (b) the A...

The chapter discusses the application of the philosophical schools of methodical constructivism and culturalism to contemporary issues in the philosophy of engineering and technology, as these schools have so far received comparably little attention in English-speaking countries. Their origins and relations to different lines of philosophical resea...

This metaethical paper develops an answer to the question of what “Robot Ethics” amounts to. In a language critical approach two levels and four meanings are reconstructed. The focus is on the way in which we practically talk about “Robot Ethics” and the different meanings we concretely address. This includes a conceptual analysis of some trademark...

In this transdisciplinary paper we discuss the question whether trust in human-robot-interaction (HRI) can be gained by gamification. Therefore, the concept of credibility will be introduced. A specific focus is on the question concerning the implementation of ethical rules in robotic safety systems. With a focus on Wittgenstein as a philosopher of...

This paper aims to contribute to the debate about ethical, legal, and social implications of robotics by discussing the meaning of autonomy. Robots are often labeled as autonomous, but what does “autonomy” in robotics actually mean? In order to answer this question, methods of conceptual analysis and language critique are applied. It turns out that...

In this paper, we examine the use of the term ‘life’ in the debates within and about synthetic biology. We review different positions within these debates, focusing on the historical background, the constructive epistemology of laboratory research and the pros and cons of metaphorical speech. We argue that ‘life’ is used as buzzword, as folk concep...

Robots are predicted to play a role in many aspects of our lives in the future, affecting work, personal relationships, education, business, law, medicine and the arts. As they become increasingly intelligent, autonomous, and communicative, they will be able to function in ever more complex physical and social surroundings, transforming the practic...

The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein is seldom used by philosophers of technology, let alone in a systematic way, and in general there has been little discussion about the role of language in relation to technology. Conversely, Wittgenstein scholars have paid little attention to technology in the work of Wittgenstein. In this paper we read the Philosoph...

This essay summarizes the claims on IT security that have been presented and discussed during the workshop “YuMi in Action! Ethics and Engineering as Transdisciplinary Robotics Performance”. As a sort of “Ems Telegram” in the era of digital transformation, this essay aims to be a cross-disciplinary thought provocation on IT security and what Bismar...

In three sections some interactions at the workshop "YuMi in Action! Ethics and Engineering as Transdisciplinary Robotics Performance" and related later reflections are summarized. The primary emphasis is to illustrate what transdisciplinarity is and how transdisciplinarity could work as a certain form of scientific cooperation. Therefore four prin...

In this paper Ludwig Wittgenstein is interpreted as a philosopher of language and technology. Due to current developments, a special focus is on lifeworld practice and technoscientific research. In particular, image-interpretation is used as a concrete methodical example. Whereas in most science- or technology-related Wittgenstein interpretations t...

This article is a summary of a joint discussion session that was held impromptu at the RP 2018 conference. The session addressed the two main questions: “Why do we build robots, why should we build robots?” along a series of queries, which were directly posed to, and discussed by, the conference plenum (the audience of a large lecture hall with abo...

Human-Autonomous Systems Cooperation raises several ethical and philosophical issues that need to be addressed not only at the stage of implementation of the system but also preferably at the stage of development. This paper identifies and discusses some of these issues, with a specific focus on human-machine cooperation problems and chances, focus...

A methodological framework of synthetic biology is developed from a philosophical point of view. The emphasis is on the status of synthetic biology as a laboratory-science and hybrid of engineering and natural science, which is shaped by technological research practice. First, three methodological turns are described: a turn from physics to biology...

In this paper ethical and epistemological challenges of data security, information protection and privacy in social robotics are addressed. Analyzing the characteristics of asymmetric “new wars” including cyberwar and information warfare the IT based problematic of social robots will be elaborated as Social Robotic Information- and Cyberwar. It is...

This is a short reply and comment to the approach of Mark Coeckelbergh. In his reflections on “Responsibility, robots, and humans: A preliminary reflection on the phenomenology of self-driving cars”, presented at the conference ROBO-PHILOSOPHY 2014 — SOCIABLE ROBOTS AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL RELATIONS (August 20–23, 2014) at Aarhus University, empha...

This volume brings together contributions by philosophers, art historians and artists who discuss, interpret and analyse the moving and gesturing body in the arts. Broadly inspired by phenomenology, and taking into account insights from cognitive science, the contribution of the motor body in watching a film, attending a dance or theatre performanc...