Researchers tortured robots to test the limits of human empathy.
A brief history of people bullying robots
In 2015, a jovial three-foot-tall robot with pool noodles for arms set out on what seemed like a simple mission. Using the kindness of strangers, this machine, called “hitchBOT” would spend months hitchhiking across the continental United States. It made it just 300 miles. Two weeks into the road trip, HitchBOT was found abandoned in the streets of Philadelphia, its head severed and spaghetti arms ripped from its bucket-shaped body.
“It was quite a setback, and we didn’t really expect it,” hitchBOT co-creator Frauke Zeller told CNN at the time.
hitchBot’s untimely dismemberment isn’t a unique case. For years, humans have relished opportunities to kick, punch, trip, crush, and run over anything remotely resembling a robot. This penchant for machine violence could move from funny to potentially concerning as a new wave of humanoid robots is being built to work alongside people in manufacturing facilities. But a growing body of research suggests we may be more likely to feel bad for our mechanical assistants and even take it easy on them if they express sounds of human-like pain. In other words, hitchBot may have fared better if it had been programmed to beg for mercy.
Humans feel guilty when robots cry
Radboud University Nijmegen researcher Marieke Wieringa recently carried out a series of experiments looking at how people reacted when asked to violently shake a test robot. In some cases, participants would shake the robot and nothing would happen. Other times, the robot would emit a pitiful crying sound from a pair of small speakers or enlarge its “eyes” to convey sadness. The researchers say they were more likely to feel guilty when the robot gave the emotion-like responses. In another experiment, the participants were given the option of either performing a boring task or giving the robot a solid shake. Participants were more than willing to shake the robot when it was unresponsive. When it cried out, however, participants opted to go ahead and complete the task instead.
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