There is lots of interest in the influence robots have on our work and life. Public debate often considers the emerging technology as an external force that shapes and threatens social relationships, thereby ignoring that it is people who make decisions about the design, development and deployment of new technology.

In her book “The New Breed” Kate Darling offers a novel perspective on human-robot relationships by introducing the human-animal relationship as an analogy that may encourage researchers, including interactionists, to consider the relationship between humans and robots in new ways. My review of The New Breed” has just been published in Symbolic Interaction.