Can a robot think for itself? Helping young people to ask big questions about human and electronic personhood

It is common to use anthropomorphic labels when talking about technology, for example describing some robots and phones as smart, thinking and talking. This article describes a workshop in which students considered ways that words such as ‘hearing’, ‘smart’ and ‘intelligence’ might change in meaning when they are used in the context of robotics and machines. The aim was to help students to recognise that thinking, talking and other human capabilities have multifaceted meanings and to be cautious about the risk of uncritically reducing their meaning to a simpler, functional level. This workshop fits into a series that juxtaposes ideas and questions in biology with ideas and questions in engineering. Biology encourages us to be curious about what is ‘inside’ a robot or organism as a way to understand the behaviours we see from the outside. Biological knowledge and terms can help lawyers and politicians to create definitions and criteria for new situations and problems arising from technological advances.