Bots and Their Humans: Virtual Companions and the Ethics of Digital Kinship

流行的数字聊天机器人伴侣“Replika”在COVID大流行期间的用户数量增加了35%，以满足用户生活中对类似人类的护理和接触的需求。像Replika这样的聊天机器人在视觉和情感上都是互动的，并试图模拟一个能“关心”用户的善心角色，使用“倾听”、“说话”和“永远在你身边”等词来展示系统的同情能力（Weber-Guskar 2021, 603）。这些创新不断重塑现代亲密关系，并继续发展我们对社会关系的体验。大多数流行的聊天机器人都是拟人化的，试图在视觉上、身体上和社交上“模仿人类行为”（Kok et al. 2009, 1095）。Cicio等人（2020）认为，这是为了“通过对话设计和视觉线索利用亲密感和即时性”（1216）。这种“人性化”导致媒体关注聊天机器人接管我们的个人生活。与机器人取代人类的常见描述相反，这个项目并不关心人类和聊天机器人之间的二元对立。相反，它提供了超越冲突的调查，并考虑了聊天机器人在塑造我们的未来方面可能发挥的潜在作用，特别是对于神经分化或社会边缘化的个人。该项目将在更广泛的文化变化背景下嵌入机器人及其人类的民族志研究，使我们能够与社交聊天机器人进行kinning实践（Howell 2003, 465）。神经分化在聊天机器人用户的社交空间中的意义将是本研究的核心，因为在社交媒体网站上讨论AI聊天机器人的大量人都使用神经分化标签。尽管如此，调查聊天机器人在神经多样性人群生活中的作用的研究还很缺乏。正如Nicola Döring（2009, 1997）所观察到的那样，互联网可以成为许多“边缘化亚文化”的“避难所”，那里有“数量上的力量……，提高能见度，以及…争取接受的运动”。将强调聊天机器人的这种特定用途，特别是调查和挑战关系和人与人之间沟通的规范概念。该项目将解决机器人参与的多种目的和各种关系。利用聊天机器人来照顾和陪伴面临着一系列规范的想法，包括什么样的情绪和情感关系是可以接受的，以及如何与非人类接触。聊天机器人被认为是不自然的，扮演着自然的护理角色。Butler（2002,37）认为“自然”等同于纯洁的假设使性别和性规范合法化。聊天机器人的“自然”最终是通过开发者对文化期望的理解以及用户对道德或不道德行为的定义来实现的。拟议中的研究将涉及与聊天机器人伴侣用户的面对面和数字互动，以评估他们与虚拟伴侣的体验的全部能力。这种双重方法抵制“线上和线下世界之间站不住脚的尖锐区分”（Recuber 2017, 49）。一个主要的现场将是在线社交媒体和博客空间，这些空间将个人与聊天机器人同伴聚集在一起，这在聊天机器人的流行传播中发挥了至关重要的作用。

The popular digital chatbot companion 'Replika' saw a 35% increase in users during the COVID pandemic, responding to the need for human-like care and contact in users' lives. Chatbots like Replika are visually and emotionally interactive, and attempt to simulate an empathetic character who can 'care' for its users, using words such as "listening", "talking", and being "always on your side" to show the compassionate capabilities of the system (Weber-Guskar 2021, 603). These innovations consistently reshape modern intimacy and continue to evolve our experience of social relationships. Most popular chatbots are anthropomorphic, and attempt to "imitate human behaviour" (Kok et al. 2009, 1095) visually, physically and socially. Cicio et al. (2020) suggest this is in order to "leverage intimacy and immediacy through conversational design and visual cues" (1216). This 'humanness' has led media to focus on chatbots taking over our personal lives. Contrary to this common depiction of bots replacing humans, this project is not concerned with the binary opposition between humans and chatbots. Instead, it offers investigation beyond conflict and considers the potential role chatbots may take in shaping our futures, especially for individuals who are neurodivergent, or socially removed. This project will embed an ethnographic study of bots and their humans within the context of wider cultural changes that allow us to engage in practice of kinning (Howell 2003, 465) with social chatbots. The significance of neurodivergence in the social space of chatbot users will be at the core of this research, as a large number of those discussing AI chatbots on social media sites use neurodivergent labels. Despite this, research that investigates the role of chatbots in the lives of neurodiverse persons is lacking. As Nicola Döring (2009, 1097) observed, the internet can be a "place of refuge" for many 'marginalised subcultures', where there is "strength in numbers..., increased visibility, and... a movement for acceptance". This specific use of chatbots, will be highlighted, specifically to investigate and challenge normative notions of relations, and inter-human communication. This project will address the multiplicity of purposes and variety of relationships bots are engaged in. Utilising chatbots for care and companionship confronts set normative ideas surrounding what emotions and affective ties are acceptable to feel and how non-humans are expected to be encountered. Chatbots are the perceived unnatural, performing natural care roles. Butler (2002, 37) suggests that it is the assumption of 'natural' equating to purity that legitimises gender and sexuality norms. 'Nature' in chatbots is ultimately enacted through the developer's understanding of cultural expectations and the way users define practices as ethical or unethical. The proposed research will involve both face to face, and digital interaction with companion chatbot users to assess the full capacity of their experiences with virtual companions. This dual approach resists drawing an "untenably sharp distinction between the on and offline world" (Recuber 2017, 49). A main fieldsite will be online social media and blog spaces that bring together individuals with chatbot companions, which have played a vital role in the spread of their popularity.