CAS SEE Seminars with Guests: Abootaleb Safdari

On Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 12:00 pm (CET), we are hosting the CAS SEE Seminar with Abootaleb Safdari on Otheroids: An Empathy-Based Approach to Artificial Agents in conversation with the RECAS Fellow Ljubiša Bojić.

About the seminar

There is a growing tendency to view robots and AI systems (artificial agents: AAs) as companions or partners, requiring them to transcend their status as mere technological artifacts and become ‘others’ or ‘pseudo-others.’ While concepts from postphenomenology to relationalism have hinted at this notion, it has remained largely abstract and lacking in detailed explanation. In this talk, Safdari will draw upon the phenomenological-enactive approach to social cognition to offer a comprehensive account of this complex form of human-AA relation, demonstrating their status as part of social relations. To conceptualize this dynamic, Safdari will introduce the notion of Otheroids—a term that captures the unique status of artificial agents as entities that occupy a liminal space between mere tools and fully realized social others.

Abootaleb Safdari is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Bremen, Germany, and a researcher in the Humans on Mars initiative. I specialize in the philosophy of mind, AI, and robotics. My research, grounded in the phenomenological tradition, aims to develop a novel relational framework that reimagines AI systems and robots as genuine partners in interaction rather than mere tools. This perspective informs key discussions on trust in human-AI relationships and the broader ethical and epistemological implications of AI development.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88989643663?pwd=VnZTOWRmdnl0WEZIdTczc1paZWtkdz09

Meeting ID: 889 8964 3663

Passcode: 328897

Fellowship

Fellowships are supported by OSF Western Balkans, ERSTE Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.