Biomimetics, Bioinspired, Biorobotics: Discourses on Nature in the 21st Century
Workshop Organized by Michael Friedman and Marco Tamborini
In the last decades, with the rapid development of materials sciences, biomimicry, biomimetics, bioinspired materials and biorobotics posited themselves as domains whose starting point is inspiration from nature, or more precisely, from various ›natural‹ objects and processes, to be found in the natural world. The discourses of these new disciplines are abundant with terms such as ›autonomy‹, ›adaptation‹, ›inspiration‹, and ›sustainability‹, and all of these are embedded in a promise of a new approach to and a new definition of the concept of ›nature‹ and new interweaving of nature with technology. Questions nevertheless arise, whether such new conceptions are indeed new, or whether they are not already embedded in or continuing older discourses and metaphorical fields. Furthermore, questions might be asked about the kind of new actions these metaphors may allow or deny. Moreover, even deeper questions should be posed on the function of such metaphors in these fields. For example, considering nature as a »library of resources« or solutions stresses the prevalent metaphor of reading, which was very much used since the early modern period, if not before. In which ways may the discourse of the programming of nature, seen for example with CRISPR, be reflected in the discourses of biomimetics, bioinspired materials and biorobotics? To give another example, recent research directions in biorobotics are pushing the idea of a translation between the natural and the technological as an epistemic core in grounding the design of bioinspired robotics. According to this view, scientists are turning themselves into translators.
The workshop aims to explore the new discourses, metaphors, and conceptual approaches in which the research on biomimetics as well as on bioinspired and biorobotics materials is embedded. By bringing together HPS experts in biomimetics, bioinspired, and biorobotics disciplines, we seek to understand how formative these discourses and metaphors are. We aim to explore the ways in which they reflect older traditions, identify the actions that support the use of such concepts, and examine how they contribute to a new conceptual and philosophical landscape in the 21st century.
Program
21.11.2024
Empathy is of incalculable importance for human coexistence: understanding what others think and feel, cooperating with each other, and as a component of our moral abilities. It therefore makes sense to equip artificial systems with the ability to empathize if they are to interact with people. Analogous to the discipline of »artificial intelligence«, which aims to simulate, model, or reproduce human cognitive performance, »artificial empathy« refers to a field of research that deals with the simulation, modeling, or reproduction of empathy in artificial systems. Since empathy is also neurophysiologically based, it makes sense to use the methods of biorobotics. This approach is discussed using examples.
22.11.2024
In recent decades plants have attracted a lot of multidisciplinary research attention. This paper will argue that a new notion of biomimicry is emerging from the interaction between plant physiologists, engineers, designers, architects, and philosophers. It is no longer a question of taking inspiration from organic forms in architecture or mimicking a few properties of plant tissues to design materials such as velcro or water-repellent paints. The multidisciplinary approach to plants reveals what they are capable of, in terms of adaptation to their environment. It thus develops a new perspective on the plant kingdom highlighting its ecological performances and outlining an alternative paradigm of sociotechnical innovation that tends to abolish the distance between plants and humans.
The ambiguous dialectic existing in biomimicry between natural and artificial on the one hand, and between life and technology on the other, prompts us to develop two sets of reflections: does biomimicry actually intend to imitate life or nature? This first question leads us to ask what biomimicry imitates. Among the various possible answers (form, function, the relationship between the individual and the environment, etc.), some of them will show us, secondly, that although biomimicry tends to homogenise physis and techne, there are at least some biomimetic techniques - such as exoskeletons - that help, on the contrary, to define quite clear boundaries between the living and the technical.
The goal of this talk is to highlight the relevance of the work of Ivan Illich to reflect on the legacies and mutual relations of concepts and metaphors employed nowadays in the field of biomimetics and biomimicry. While bio-inspired disciplines attempt to imitate, learn from and transpose ideas from nature to technology, Greek thought already considered the possibility that techne is an imitation of nature. At the same time, techne could be conceived as supplementary to nature, bringing to perfection what nature could not. Mechane, on the other hand, represented attempts at outwitting nature through mechanical devices such as water clocks. In the middle ages, Hugh of St. Victor presents a reflection on tools that connects technical making and human need through ecology. How do these conceptual legacies clarify the stakes in the ambitions of biomimicry to make technology more ecologically compatible by imitating nature?
From the service interactions of earlier digital support systems like Siri and Alexa to the nuanced communication with AI chatbots and ChatGPT, the pattern of question and answer, demand and response, is continually expanding to encompass more forms of responsiveness (e.g., touch and movement), particularly in embodied technologies like robots. It is still under discussion which features contribute to the experience of having ›real‹ and even profound relationships with these technological artifacts (if at all). This talk aims to examine the influence of bioinspired responsive robot design on the human interactional experience, grounding the findings in a phenomenological-anthropological framework of responsivity. Bioinspired robotics presents a variety of responsive phenomena that are not adequately captured in their effects on the human ›user‹ merely by categorizing them under the umbrella term of interaction. The mimetics of responsiveness has ethical implications, especially due to the anthropological significance of responsive behavior as such.
Registration
The workshop takes place at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« at Sophienstraße 22a in Berlin-Mitte in the 2nd backyard, 2nd floor in the Central Laboratory. Prior registration is not required. For questions and further details, please contact: Michael Friedman (Bonn University / Tel Aviv University) at friedmanm [at] tauex.tau.ac.il and Marco Tamborini (TU Darmstadt) at marco.tamborini [at] tu-darmstadt.de.
Central Laboratory
Sophienstraße 22a
10178 Berlin