  Machines, from artificially intelligent digital assistants to embodied
robots, are becoming more pervasive in everyday life. Drawing on feminist
science and technology studies (STS) perspectives, we demonstrate how machine
designers are not just crafting neutral objects, but relationships between
machines and humans that are entangled in human social issues such as gender
and power dynamics. Thus, in order to create a more ethical and just future,
the dominant assumptions currently underpinning the design of these
human-machine relations must be challenged and reoriented toward relations of
justice and inclusivity. This paper contributes the "social machine" as a model
for technology designers who seek to recognize the importance, diversity and
complexity of the social in their work, and to engage with the agential power
of machines. In our model, the social machine is imagined as a potentially
equitable relationship partner that has agency and as an "other" that is
distinct from, yet related to, humans, objects, and animals. We critically
examine and contrast our model with tendencies in robotics that consider robots
as tools, human companions, animals or creatures, and/or slaves. In doing so,
we demonstrate ingrained dominant assumptions about human-machine relations and
reveal the challenges of radical thinking in the social machine design space.
Finally, we present two design challenges based on non-anthropomorphic
figuration and mutuality, and call for experimentation, unlearning dominant
tendencies, and reimagining of sociotechnical futures.
