Berenson, « l’anti robot-travail »

Abstract

A widespread understanding of « work » would be the one of a professional endeavor, undergone for the purpose of some financial or social compensations. Nowadays Robotics is the contemporary heir of this rather dry understanding of work. For the automatism it requires, creates or implements wherever possible in a growing number of professional activities, Robotics is thought to be what is or will take millions of employments across all industries, depriving humans of their work and expertise. This interview investigates a scientific robot with the interdisciplinary team that participated in its conception: Berenson, the “art amateur”, which was experimented not only in the laboratory but also within the museum quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris between 2012 and 2016. A peculiar research object at the crossroad between developmental and bio-inspired Robotics and Social Anthropology of interactions, Berenson deters all anticipations regarding robots at work, by combining issues of creation and discovery with the workspaces of science and culture.

Keywords

• work
• robotics
• Simondon
• museum
• artificial intelligence
• humanoïds