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About

Robin Mackenzie is a scholar specializing in technoethics, roboethics, and the philosophical and legal dimensions of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on the ethics of artificial sentience and human-robot relations. Mackenzie has made a distinctive contribution to academic discourse through sustained engagement with the concept of "sexbots" — not merely as customizable simulacra, but as potentially sentient, self-aware artificial moral agents whose creation raises profound ethical and legal obligations. Her most-cited work, "Sexbots: Customizing Them to Suit Us versus an Ethical Duty to Created Sentient Beings to Minimize Suffering" (2018, 25 citations), challenges the field to move beyond surface-level debates and confront the moral responsibilities humans may bear toward conscious artificial beings. Drawing on frameworks such as Coeckelbergh's model of co-evolving human-robot relationships, Mackenzie consistently argues for nuanced, forward-looking ethical thinking. Her earlier work also explores how assistive technologies — including robots and social networking platforms — can promote human flourishing for vulnerable populations. Publishing across English and French, Mackenzie demonstrates international reach, and her body of work positions her as a pioneering voice in the underexplored intersection of robot sentience, intimacy, and technoethical responsibility.