Three ages of hospitality reflection: origins, contemporary, and future

Purpose The purpose of this study is to position hospitality as an ethical and philosophical process rather than managerial, operational or technological service outcomes. It traces how hospitality’s ethical and philosophical foundations have been progressively reconfigured, addresses the rise of machine-mediated contexts and proposes socio-hospitality as a conceptual response to the ethical and philosophical challenges of artificial intelligence (AI)- and robotics-driven service environments. Design/methodology/approach This study synthesizes ethical and philosophical perspectives drawn from religious traditions, Western and Eastern philosophy and contemporary socio-technical studies, reflecting on how ethical responsibility and philosophical viewpoints in hospitality have moved from situational human judgment to socio-technical systems as a result of AI-embedded and embodied robotics that organize service encounters through algorithms, interfaces and human–machine hybrid roles. Findings This study identifies three conceptual ages of hospitality, and demonstrates that the machine age does not eliminate hospitality’s ethical and philosophical dimension but relocates ethical responsibility within socio-technical design. The study suggests five distinct forms of hospitality – functional, operational, social, personal and self-reflective – through which AI-mediated systems sustain, narrow or transform hospitality’s ethical and philosophical breadth and depth. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual reflection, this study does not provide empirical validation of the proposed typology of hospitality or the socio-hospitality measurements. Future research could apply these concepts, examine their cultural variability and explore how different technologies relocate ethical responsibility within hospitality systems. Originality/value This reflection contributes to the literature by classifying three ages of hospitality, reconceptualizing hospitality and addressing the emergence of AI-embedded and embodied robotics as a socio-technical ethical process rather than an intelligent and automated service output. By introducing socio-hospitality and multiple ethical forms of hospitality, this study offers a new understanding of how ethical responsibility and philosophical need to embrace human nature when dealing with AI-empowered technological actors.