Connective AI

Social (Ro)Bots, Play, Democracy

Zizi Papacharissi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Computer Science
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040629871
• Subtopic: Human-Computer Interaction
• Index: Computer Science

Focusing on social robots, play, and democracy, this volume explores how AI can be used in connective ways to advance the common good and support democratic practice.

This innovative collection puts play at the center of how we think about AI and democracy, exploring how playful participation may be used to help restore the creative energies of democracy. Featuring contributions by seasoned experts, the chapters explore topics such as social robots, play, and democracy; polymorphic chatbots and online interactions; AI curation by bot-supported agents and participatory environments; social robots, journalism, and connective action; civility and AI; collaboration between human and robotic agents in democratic spaces; democratic experiments, generative AI, and polymorphic robots; gaming, play, and democratic engagement between humans and nonhumans; and AI, play, and democracy. This book presents new ideas for how connective AI and social robots could be used to help reimagine and improve our everyday lives; specifically, how playful interaction with robotic agents could help revive civic engagement, thus ushering in a new paradigm for connective AI.

This book will be of interest to upper-level students, researchers, and scholars across a variety of fields, including media and communication studies, science and technology studies, and political science, particularly those exploring AI and human–computer interaction in relation to democracy and civic life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate: Visually Generative AI and the Civic Imagination
• 3 Gaming the System
• 4 AI Has Joined the Chat: Exploring the Role of Generative AI Assistants in Group Chats
• 5 The Silent Chatbot: On the Democratic Significance of Silence in AI-Mediated Communication
• 6 Beyond Representation and Bias: Mimicry and Distillation Through generative a.i.
• 7 Digital Inequality in ChatGPT Awareness and Knowledge
• 8 Mainstreaming AI: How Journalists Play with Emerging Technologies
• 9 Designing the AI Maze: How the Tech Industry Entraps Users
• 10 The Feminist Artificial Intelligence Playbook
• 11 Privacy at Play: Anticipating Hyper-personalization in Conversational Robot Toys
• 12 Do Asians Respect AI More? Toward the “Social Exchange Agents Principle” and “Human-Machine Harmony” for Communicative AI Ethics
• 13 Playing with AI in Video Games: Lessons About the Human Main Character Syndrome from Non-Player Characters
• 14 {Not} All Fun and Games in Virtual Reality: The State of Prosocial and Antisocial VR Play
• 15 Talking to Non-Stochastic Parrots: Human-Machine Communication and Human-Animal Communication in Parallel Lines
• 16 The Model Museum: AI at the Museum-Museum Interface
• 17 Gen AI in Support of Democratic Debates? The Case of Environmental Activism
• 18 Voice of the Ogiek: Play, Co-Design, and the Spiral Return of Orality in Connective AI
• Index