送餐机器人看似自动,实则依赖人力与制度支持,重新配置了劳动形态。
Is Robot Labor Labor? Delivery Robots and the Politics of Work in Public Space
- 将机器人配送视为社会技术协同的集体成果,非独立运作。
- 观察到行人普遍让路给机器人,形成‘机器人特权’现象。
- 适合关注人机交互、城市治理与劳动政治的研究者阅读。
随着人行道送餐机器人日益融入城市生活,本文提出一个关键问题:机器人的劳动是否算真正的劳动?这一追问促使我们深入考察机器人劳动背后的社会与政治结构。基于首尔两个智慧城市区域的民族志调查,研究发现每项成功配送都是分布式社会技术协作的结果——依赖人类劳动、监管协调与社会适应。尽管机器人常被描述为自主高效,但其运行实际高度依赖隐性人力支持。不同于工业机器人,配送机器人在公共空间中与日常行人互动,嵌入政策与进步叙事之中。研究识别出‘机器人特权’现象:行人习惯性让路;同时观察到旁观者视其为‘可爱’,而日常共存者则认为其‘令人钦佩’。论文主张将机器人劳动重构为集体性组合体,提供对韩国智慧城市建设自动化实践的实证洞见,并呼吁人机交互研究更深入地介入劳动与空间政治议题。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
As sidewalk delivery robots become increasingly integrated into urban life, this paper begins with a critical provocation: Is robot labor labor? More than a rhetorical question, this inquiry invites closer attention to the social and political arrangements that robot labor entails. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork across two smart-city districts in Seoul, we examine how delivery robot labor is collectively sustained. While robotic actions are often framed as autonomous and efficient, we show that each successful delivery is in fact a distributed sociotechnical achievement--reliant on human labor, regulatory coordination, and social accommodations. We argue that delivery robots do not replace labor but reconfigure it--rendering some forms more visible (robotic performance) while obscuring others (human and institutional support). Unlike industrial robots, delivery robots operate in shared public space, engage everyday passersby, and are embedded in policy and progress narratives. In these spaces, we identify "robot privilege"--humans routinely yielding to robots--and distinct perceptions between casual observers ("cute") and everyday coexisters ("admirable"). We contribute a conceptual reframing of robot labor as a collective assemblage, empirical insights into South Korea's smart-city automation, and a call for HRI to engage more deeply with labor and spatial politics to better theorize public-facing robots.
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