Based on an integrated theoretical framework, this study analyzes user acceptance behavior toward socially interactive robots focusing on the variables that influence the users’ attitudes and intentions to adopt robots. Individuals’ responses to questions about attitude and intention to use robots were collected and analyzed according to different factors modified from a variety of theories. The results of the proposed model explain that social presence is key to the behavioral intention to accept social robots. The proposed model shows the significant (...) roles of perceived adaptivity and sociability, both of which affect attitude as well as influence perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, respectively. These factors can be key features of users’ expectations of social robots, which can give practical implications for designing and developing meaningful social interaction between robots and humans. The new set of variables is specific to social robots, acting as factors that enhance attitudes and behavioral intentions in human–robot interactions. Keywords: Robot acceptance model; Socially interactive robots; Social robots; Social presence. (shrink)

사회진화론은 1880년대에 초기 개화사상가들에 의해 한국사회에 수용되었고 1900년대에는 일종의 시대정신으로 여겨지며 당시 국제사회를 해석하는 가장 유력한 사상적 프레임으로 기능하였다. 그러나 지금까지의 연구들은 1910년을 기점으로 사회진화론의 사상적 기능이 소멸되었다고 보거나 제한된 영역에서의 사상적 양상만을 고찰하였다. 본고에서는 1910년 이후로도 사회진화론의 영향력은 다양한 사상 속에 침투되어 변용적으로 존재해왔으며 동시에 그것을 극복하기 위한 시도도 있었음을 밝히고자 하였다. 먼저 안중근은 동양 3국[황인종]의 연대를 통해 서구 세력[백인종]의 침략을 막아야 한다는 동양평화론을 주장하였다. 이는 인종주의에 사회진화론을 결합한 것으로 서구의 침략을 일종의 동종(同種) 혹은 약자 연대를 통해 대항하고자 하는 (...) ‘저항적 인종주의’의 성격을 띠었다. 박은식은 사회진화론적 진보의 논리를 유학에 적용하여 당시 유학이 가지고 있었던 봉건성을 극복하고, 유학의 대동사상, 성선론 등을 통해 사회진화론의 인종주의적 우열론과 약육강식론의 비도덕성을 극복하고자 하였다. 1919년에는 제1차 세계대전 이후 파리강화회의가 개최되면서 ‘세계평화’가 화두로 제시되었고 ‘민족자결주의’, ‘세계주의’, ‘평화주의’ 등의 관념이 나타났다. 또한 러시아 혁명 및 사회주의 국가 건설 등을 계기로 사회주의, 아나키즘 등 새로운 사상이 등장하면서 사회진화론적 세계관에 균열을 가져온다. 이러한 사상적 흐름 속에서 안창호는 국제사회에서 여전히 약육강식의 논리가 통용되고 있음을 비판적으로 인식하고는 있었지만, 현실적으로 국제사회로부터 독립국으로서의 자격을 인정을 받기 위해서는 자강의 힘을 길러야 한다고 주장하였다. 그러나 그 힘의 토대에 근면, 성실, 신용 등 개신교적 자본주의 윤리와 민족주의적 공동체의식을 도입하여 사회진화론적 경쟁의 비도덕성을 극복하고자 하였다. 신채호는 약육강식에 의한 열강의 식민 지배를 ‘민중직접혁명’을 통해 타도해야한다고 주장했다. 이 과정에서 그는 세계 식민지 민중과의 연대를 주장하기도 했다. 그러나 역사를 ‘아(我)와 비아(非我)의 투쟁’ 즉, 자민족과 타민족의 생존투쟁의 기록이라고 봤던 그의 역사관은 사회진화론적 관점을 완전히 극복하지는 못한 것으로 보인다. 안중근과 박은식의 사상은 1910년을 기점으로 한 것이고 안창호와 신채호의 사상은 1919년 이후 주창된 것이다. 이들은 초기 사회진화론자들처럼 약육강식의 논리를 무비판적으로 수용하면서 소위 ‘문명국’의 ‘비문명국’에 대한 지배나 착취를 원리로서 인정하는 사고에서는 벗어났지만, 현실을 사회진화론적 프레임으로 바라보는 사고를 완전히 단절해내지는 못했다. 그러나 동양평화론, 유교, 자유민주주의, 아나키즘 등 각자가 취한 여러 가지 사상적 토대 위에서 사회진화론의 이론적, 현실적 문제를 극복하려는 시도가 나타났는데 그것이 1910년 이후 한국 사상계의 하나의 큰 특징이라고 결론지을 수 있다. (shrink)

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account the (...) existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

We examine the effects of taxes on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Employing a tax reform in Korea that imposed a new tax on cash retention, we find that treated firms improved CSR performance after the tax reform was enacted. This result is driven by improvement in environmental and social performance. Moreover, the observed improvement is more pronounced in treated firms that face less severe financial constraints, are afforded fewer investment opportunities, feature large foreign ownership stakes, and employ stronger corporate governance (...) mechanisms. The results suggest that tax increases lead to an increase in CSR investment and the magnitude of the increase depends on firm-level characteristics. As such, our results support the tax-strategic view of CSR in a country that has been a latecomer in incorporating CSR practices into business operations. (shrink)

With the rapid development of modern technology, people has stepped into an risky era. Ethical stipulation is the important means to reduce the risks. But in reality, ethical stipulation of technology always face some kind of dilemma which mainly come from two aspects: one is that when we try to regulate the subject oftechnology, we find that it always difficult to distinguish the responsibilities. The other aspect is that when we try to limit the result of technology, we often have (...) to give up because of lacking feasibility, which means we sink into the famous “Collingridge dilemma”. Are we able to get out of the dilemma? What should we doif we want to got out of it? First, in the modern technological system, individual’s action is taken over by group’s action according to the technological criterion. Any part of the modern technology need multiple subjects finish his job during the course. Therefore a new form of responsibility named group responsibility has been formed. Like Johnas said, in this ethics, ‘I’ will be replaced by ‘we’ and decision will be the business of a group. So it is difficult for us to find out that “I” from “us” once the technological risks happened. We lost the object of ethical stipulation as the result of no convinced standard and principals of prescribing the group responsibility. Second, when we try to stimulate some certain results of technology, we find we lack not only the wisdom of precisely judging or assessingtechnology itself, but also the ability of correcting the bad results if it has. Here again do we fall into the dilemma. This make it difficult for us to stipulate technology with ethic. From above discussion we can see, the stipulation, no matter from the aspect of technological responsibility or from aspect of the application of technology, has been sure to meet the dilemma. If the conflicts between a hypothesis and experiment cannot be eliminated, we have to rethink the theoryand come back again to technology itself and pursue the essence of technology again. Technology is a process from inventing, designing to forming material technological products; is a process from invisible technology to visible technology; is a process potential technology to real-life technology or intellective technology to reallife technology. Technology exists in process. The essential and innate characteristic is it’s process and dynamics. The transition oftechnological form involves many factors of economic, social, historical, constitutional and cultural. Technological creation of intellectual form is the duty of inventor or technologist. And it is entrepreneur’s job to use the technology or invention, and make them in large quantity, apply them in reality or get economic or other profit. Although there need be interaction, understanding, cooperation, support, coordination among scientist, technologist and enterpriser, they have different responsibility and delimitation. Technology exists in process, no doubt, so does modern technology. This decides that the ethical stipulation of modern technology should be a process stipulation. The essence of modern technological is not only the limitation of subject of technology either not only controlthe object of technology. It is the ethical stipulation in the unity of subject and object of technological dynamic process. This is basic point of understanding ethical stipulation of modern technology. Responsibility ethics consider that the group responsibility as the premise of technological stipulation.It noticed the static structure of modern technological system, but neglect the dynamic linkage between factors. And it only analysed the special construction, neglected the evolution of system of technological responsibility and the inter relationship between space dimension and time dimension. If we unfold the group responsibility along with the process of technology, we will see the different responsibility belong to different subject in different stage of the process. We can also see that different actors obey different norm or criteria according to their task. In this case, we can distinct the distribution of the group responsibility. Collingridge fixed the effective control on the two points of “before ”and ”after” the process of the technological action, namely, the stipulation for the staring point and stipulation of terminal point. But the whole process was neglected. According to the point of view of process stipulation.it is not the sudden occurrence for technology from “nothing ”to “having”. There are time and space during the process. From middle experiment to industrial experiment, the most characters of the result of technology will havebeen shown gradually, so will the social results. So we can give the small quantity an ethical evaluation and ethical choice which is possible and feasible. Over all, if we confirm the ethical stipulation of modern technology is a process regulation, we can delimitate the responsibility of the subjects of technology and also settle the prestipulation of the application of technology. At the end, we can eliminate the dilemma of ethical regulation of modern technology. (shrink)

1. Iyagipʻyŏn -- 2. Tʻamgu haksŭppʻyŏn.