From AIBO to robosphere. Organizational interdependencies in sustainable robotics

The challenge of sustainability in robotics is usually addressed in terms of materials, energy, and efficiency. Yet the long-term viability of robotic systems also depends on organizational interdependencies that shape how they are maintained, experienced, and integrated into human environments. The present article develops this systemic perspective by advancing the hypothesis that such interdependencies can be understood as self-organizing dynamics. To examine this hypothesis, we analyze the case of Sony’s AIBO robotic dogs. Originally designed for social companionship, AIBO units gave rise to a hybrid socio-technical ecosystem in which owners, repair specialists, and ritual practices sustained the robots long after their commercial discontinuation. Building on self-organization theory, we introduce the concept of the “robosphere” as an evolving network of relations in which robotic and human agents co-constitute resilient, sustainability-oriented ecosystems. Extending self-organization beyond its classical biological and technical domains, we argue that robotic sustainability must be framed not as a narrow technical issue but as a complex, multifactorial, and distributed process grounded in organizational interdependencies that integrate technical, cognitive, social, and affective dimensions of human life. Our contribution is twofold. First, we propose a modeling perspective that interprets sustainability in robotics as an emergent property of these interdependencies, exemplified by repair, reuse, and ritual practices that prolonged AIBO’s lifecycle. Second, we outline a set of systemic design principles to inform the development of future human–robot ecosystems. By situating the AIBO case within the robospheric framework, this Hypothesis and Theory article advances the view that hybrid socio-technical collectives can generate sustainability from within. It outlines a programmatic horizon for rethinking social robotics not as disposable products, but as integral nodes of co-evolving, sustainable human–robot ecologies.