Theorising Humanoid Robots as Media

Humanoid robots feature unique aesthetic, functional and imaginative characteristics. This chapter conceptualises them within a media theory framework and develops four analytically distinct dimensions. Based on (1) the premise that AI itself is becoming a medium with humanoid robots as a specific class of AI, it demonstrates that they operate as both (2) an effective social interface and (3) an epistemological interface capable of rendering new forms of knowledge computable. (4) As nothing less than artificial humans, they are both the object and the source of a prolific world of imagination.