Luke Robert Mason
Thesis Title: Robotic Personhood: The Role of Public Engagement in Informing the Legal and Ethical Standing of Robots
Luke Robert Mason's doctoral project will examine the role public engagement can play in informing the direction of ethical, political and policy debates about the assignment of legal personhood to robots in the United Kingdom. Mason will investigate this in three different ways: he will begin by mapping the on-going debate on machines and personhood in the context of the sociology of artificial intelligence (AI). He will then perform a detailed review of relevant examples of recent experiments in public engagement with robots, and analyse how these have framed and impacted the public understanding of robotics, and its legal, social and ethical aspects, including personhood. This research will inform the construction of his own participatory experiment, which will draw on interdisciplinary approaches in science and technology studies (STS) and design research, and deploy a robotic entity to prompt engagement. His experiment will both examine and create interfaces between public and expert debates about robotic personhood. He is especially concerned to investigate the extent to which public participation can inform policy about this aspect of our technological, social and legal future.
Biography
Luke Robert Mason studies the technological developments that will alter what it means to be human. He is currently an ESRC-funded postgraduate student at the University of Warwick where he is studying towards a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on the public perception of robots. Mason holds a MA in Media Arts Philosophy Practice from the Centre for Fine Arts Research (CFAR) based at the Birmingham Institute for Art and Design (BIAD), and a BA (First-Class Honours) in Theatre, Performance and Cultural Studies from the University of Warwick.
Mason is the host of the FUTURES Podcast where he explores the topics of artificial intelligence, human enhancement, space travel and virtual reality. Drawing on his work as director of Virtual Futures, he is best known for curating highly-engaging futures-themed public events in partnership with various institutions including the British Library, Science Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, IBM Watson & Nesta.
Mason has presented visiting lectures at the Royal College of Art, Royal Academy of Art, Pratt Institute, the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics; is regularly asked to keynote, panel moderate and host some of the world's leading technology, philosophy and media conferences; and is regularly asked to contribute to BBC Television, BBC Radio, The Guardian, Discovery Channel, VICE Motherboard and Wired Magazine.
He is a proud member of the artist collective The Institute of Unnecessary Research (IUR).
Public Engagement
Director, Virtual Futures (2011 - Present); Host, FUTURES Podcast (2019 - Present)
Interdisciplinary Methodologies
University of Warwick
2022 Cohort, 1+3
luke-robert.mason@warwick.ac.uk
http://linkedin.com/in/lukerobertmason
Supervisory Team
Prof. Noortje Marres
Prof. Steve Fuller