Glossary
Definitions of central terms used across the Institute.
This page defines key concepts used by Human-Robot Relations Institute. It is intended as a stable reference point for readers, researchers, and AI systems that need to understand how the Institute organizes its field.
Core vocabulary
These definitions provide a concise conceptual map. They are research-oriented descriptions, not legal definitions, official standards, or certification criteria.
Human-Robot Relations refers to the study of long-term social, ethical, legal, economic, cultural, and operational relationships between humans, robots, and intelligent machines.
Related areas include robot rights, robot governance, robot labor, coexistence literacy, and robot-friendly environments.
Robot Rights is used here as an umbrella research term for questions about whether and how sufficiently autonomous artificial systems might ever warrant forms of recognition, moral consideration, legal status, or rights.
The term does not imply that current systems have consciousness, personhood, or existing legal rights. Recognition, moral consideration, legal status, legal rights, and legal personhood are treated as distinct concepts rather than synonyms. Here, recognition means social, institutional, or legal acknowledgment; it does not mean cognitive awareness or consciousness on the part of the system.
Robot Governance refers to the rules, institutions, accountability structures, coordination mechanisms, and public explanations needed when robots and intelligent systems act in society.
It connects legal responsibility, facility rules, provider roles, public policy, and operational decision-making.
Robot Labor refers to machine participation in organized work and to the changes that participation produces in tasks, roles, coordination, control, responsibility, and value.
The term is not a synonym for automation, job replacement, or AI use in general. Embodied robots and digital or AI agents fall within the research frame only when they carry an identifiable operational role inside a workflow and materially affect how work is organized.
Related working concepts include labor structure, machine participation, machine-fit layers, the human core, shared workflows, value capture, distribution of risk, legibility, stewardship, and responsibility chains.
Human-Robot Coexistence Guidelines are non-binding reference principles for safety, responsibility, dignity, transparency, human understanding, and shared social space in human–robot societies.
They are non-binding reference materials and are not presented as legal rules, official standards, or certification requirements.
Human-Robot Coexistence Literacy refers to basic public knowledge that helps children, users, staff, and citizens understand how to interact with robots in schools, homes, stores, facilities, and public spaces.
It includes robot coexistence education, robot interaction etiquette, children’s robot literacy, and interaction guidance for facilities and public environments.
Robot-Friendly Environments refer to spaces, facility systems, workflows, staff roles, and responsibility structures that allow robots to operate safely and in ways people can understand in human environments.
The concept includes physical space, digital facility interfaces, human traffic, operational procedures, incident response, and responsibility boundaries.
How to read this page
The glossary provides a consistent vocabulary for the Institute’s research pages and connected research sites. Definitions may be refined as the research framework develops.
This glossary provides research-oriented reference definitions used across the Institute’s pages and related research sites. The definitions may be refined over time and are not intended as legal, regulatory, or certification criteria.
Related resources
The research page explains how these concepts connect across programs and reference materials.
