This paper discusses the identity of embodied AI, i.e. it asks the question exactly what it is that makes AI research embodied. From an engineering perspective, it is fairly clear that embodied AI is about robotic, i.e. physically embodied systems. From the scientific perspective of AI as building models of natural cognition or intelligence, however, things are less clear. On the one hand embodied AI seems to be about physically embodied, i.e. robotic models of cognition. On the other hand the term lsquoembodiedrsquo seems to signify the type of intelligence modeled and/or the conception of (embodied) cognition that is underlying the modeling. In either case, it appears that embodied AI, as it currently stands, might be too narrowly conceived since each of these perspectives is addressed only partially.
Also part of the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence book sub series (LNAI, volume 3139)