A robot is a physically embodied artificial agent with sensing, actuation, and decision logic. International standardization (ISO 8373:2021) defines it as a “programmed actuated mechanism with a degree of autonomy to perform locomotion, manipulation or positioning.” Robots are a subclass of the artificial agent and strictly something, not someone.
Ontological Classification
Robot and person exclude one another. This mutual exclusion is not gradual but categorical in kind. It follows from three fundamental distinctions:
- Prote energeia: Personhood is first actuality — it is not the result of a fabrication, but of a coming-to-be out of a nature. A robot is manufactured; a person is born.
- Intentionality: Genuine understanding is not symbol-processing but the reception of form. Syntax does not suffice for semantics (Searle).
- Operatio sequitur esse: Behavioral equivalence says nothing about being. Even a robot that perfectly simulates person-behavior is therefore not a person.
Taxonomy
Subclasses:
- Humanoid robot — bipedal, anthropomorphic systems
- Care robot — social companion robots and care-assistance systems
- Combat robots and lethal autonomous weapon systems
- Industrial robots (manufacturing and logistics automata)
- Surgical robots (teleoperative aids of the surgeon’s hand)
Each of these classes is technology — a tool of personal practice — never itself an acting subject.
Market Situation 2026
The International Federation of Robotics (World Robotics Report 2024) counts around 4.28 million installed industrial robots worldwide. For humanoid robots, market analyses (including Morgan Stanley’s Humanoid 100 Report 2025 and Goldman Sachs 2024) project, by the mid-2030s, double-digit billion-USD market volumes and mid-six-figure annual unit counts in the domain of productive deployments. Several manufacturers from the United States, China, South Korea, and Japan announced third-generation humanoid models in industrial series production in January 2026.
Fundamental Ethical Tension
The robot confronts personalist ontology with two tasks. First, it preserves the categorical distinction that Spaemann formulates as the difference between someone and something — against the present-day drift toward anthropomorphization. Second, it honors the robot as a tool: as a tool it can serve the person. As a substitute for personal encounter, personal responsibility, or personal dignity, it destroys what it simulates.
Ontological Classification
Superordinate terms: Artificial agent, Technology
Mutually exclusive with: Person
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- International Organization for Standardization (2021): ISO 8373:2021 Robotics — Vocabulary. ISO, Geneva.
- International Federation of Robotics (2024): World Robotics 2024 — Industrial Robots. IFR Statistical Department, Frankfurt.
- Morgan Stanley Research (2025): Humanoid 100 — Global Report 2025.
- Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research (2024): Humanoid Robots — Sizing the Market.
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons. The Difference between “Someone” and “Something”. Transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Searle, John R. (1980): “Minds, Brains, and Programs.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3), pp. 417–457.
- Bryson, Joanna J. (2010): “Robots Should Be Slaves.” In: Y. Wilks (ed.): Close Engagements with Artificial Companions. John Benjamins, pp. 63–74.