If ordinary people are to work with humanoid robots, they will need to communicate with them. But how will they do that? For many in the field, the goal is to design robots that people can talk to just as they talk to actual people. But a close look at actual communication suggests that this goal isn't realist. It may even be untenable in principle.

People often communicate with a mixture of virtual and actual elements. On the telephone, my sister and I and what we say are actual, even though our voices are virtual. In the London Underground, the warning expressed in the recording "Stand clear of the doors" is actual, even though the person making it is virtual. In the theater, Shakespeare, the actors, and I are actual, even though Romeo and Juliet and what they say are virtual. Mixtures like these cannot be accounted for in standard models of communication-for a variety of reasons. In this talk I introduce the notion of displaced actions (as on the telephone, in the London Underground, and in the theater) and characterize how they are used and interpreted in communication with a range of modern-day technologies.

No abstract available.