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An artificial creature is a an entity considered as a beign artificially created (most of the time by humans) that can be subjectified. That creature shows behaviors and personality traits that are typically observed in humans and/or animals. In fact, a robot or machine could be considered as an artificial creature and many bots actually aim to be seen as a creature or individual by its surrounding (e.g. Kismet by Breazeal, Aibo by Sony, Vector and Cozmo by Anki).
But if we take it to this extent, an interesting perspective would be to ask ourselves if simple and/or inanimated and non-robotic objects could also be considered as "artificial creatures".
My faithful beast, Cthulhu
My faithful beast, Cthulhu
We, as humans, tend to subjectify some objects and robots. As I would define it, subjectifying an object or robot is seeing it, or consider as an entity, sometimes almost as an individual rather than just an object.
An object I tend to subjectify is my gaming computer, that I even named Cthulhu, after the monstruous entity created by Howard Philips. It is probably the object I've used the most over the past 10 years which means we have been through a lot. I have cherished it, sometimes be very frustrated by it but also trying my best to not take my anger and frustration on it since Cthulhu.. stays quite expensive. In addition to the fact it holds much personal documents and projects, as a gamer, I've also been able to live plenty of virtual adventures and enjoy lots of entertainment, meaning my computer became more than just a tool of work. In the past, I tended to present my computer as an entity for a long time and it was one of my most cherished item, even referring to it as "he / him" for a while. I would actually tend to project behaviours onto my computer such as : "He is being capricious" or even angry when it would completely crash after I… may have insulted it. Since Cthulhu is still running after around 10 years, I also tend to tell myself that "He does not give up easily" rather than simply telling myself it just is resistant hardware. Finally, the fact that I even choose a name and in this case, relate it to a creature / being emphasizes the subjectifying of the object.
Manufacturing robots
Manufacturing robots
On the other side, let's talk about robots we do not subjectify. In fact, it has been quite common to see them as entity since some of them are created to be companions, pets, sometimes even friends. Even robots and objects that are most of the time not subjectified can be, when not working properly for example, but we’ll put that exception aside here since it can happen to any object according to the situation and person or being interacting with it.
The example I choose is a manufacturing robot. Those robots have specific purposes and goals and are, most of the time, only used for that and only considered as tools o accomplish the said goals. Especially in the context of mass manufacturing where it tends to be more seen as a machine or a advanced piece of technology than anything else even though some of those machines are working in tight collaboration with human employees.
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