Anthrobotics is the science of developing and studyingrobots that are either entirely or in some way human-like.
The termanthrobotics was originally coined by Mark Rosheim in a paper entitled "Design of An Omnidirectional Arm" presented at theIEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 13–18, 1990, pp. 2162–2167. Rosheim says he derived the term from "...Anthropomorphic andRobotics to distinguish the new generation of dexterous robots from its simple industrial robot forebears." The word gained wider recognition as a result of its use in the title of Rosheim's subsequent bookRobot Evolution: The Development of Anthrobotics, which focussed on facsimiles of human physical and psychological skills and attributes.
However, a wider definition of the termanthrobotics has been proposed, in which the meaning is derived fromanthropology rather thananthropomorphic. This usage includes robots that respond to input in a human-like fashion, rather than simply mimicking human actions, thus theoretically being able to respond more flexibly or to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. This expanded definition also encompasses robots that are situated in social environments with the ability to respond to those environments appropriately, such asinsect robots, roboticpets, and the like.
Anthrobotics is now taught at someuniversities, encouraging students not only to design and build robots for environments beyond current industrial applications, but also to speculate on the future of robotics that are embedded in the world at large, asmobile phones andcomputers are today. In 2016 philosopherLuis de Miranda created the Anthrobotics Cluster at theUniversity of Edinburgh "a platform of cross-disciplinary research that seeks to investigate some of the biggest questions that will need to be answered"[1] on the relationship between humans, robots and intelligent systems and "a think tank on the social spread of robotics, and also how automation is part of the definition of what humans have always been".[2] to explore the symbiotic relationship between humans and automated protocols.