Robot overlords are scary, but robot friends just as bad
WHEN the robot revolution arrives, we all know the plot: Smarter machines will supersede human intelligence and outwit us, enslave us and destroy us. But what if it’s not artificial intelligence we have to fear, but artificial stupidity? What if it isn’t robot overlords that pose the greatest risk but our willingness to trust robots, even when they are clearly wrong?
As huggable social robots tricked out with human-like facial expressions and personalities have begun to infiltrate our homes, experts are beginning to worry about how these machines will influence human behaviour - particularly in children and the elderly.
If people turn out to be easily swayed by robots, after all, the coming world filled with robot co-workers, caregivers and friends could hand immense power to marketers, rogue programmers or even just clumsy reasoning by robots.
“There is this phenomenon known as ‘automation bias’ that we find throughout our studies. People tend to believe these machines know more than they do, have greater awareness than they actually do. They imbue them with all these amazing and fanciful properties,” said Alan Wagner, an aerospace engineer at Pennsylvania State University. “It’s a little bit scary.”
A new study published in Science Robotics reveals how easily robots can influence the judgment of children, even when the robots are clearly in error - raising warning flags for parents and anyone thinking about the need for regulation. What explains this uncharacteristic response to an outside stimulus?
“Children are the most vulnerable, but we’re all vulnerable,” said Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research.
“The conversation we need to have is just how wrong-headed the direction (is that) we are pursuing. I’m really for robots that do good things, but it should not be hard to determine there are areas where robots really can do us some harm.
“This is not a good idea, to get children used to the idea that robots are experts and companions.”
In a hopeful sign, adults were able to resist the social pressure from the robots in a parallel set of experiments, even though they caved to peer pressure when it was other adults in the room giving the wrong answer.
“Children are known to suspend disbelief,” said Anna-Lisa Vollmer, a researcher at Bielefeld University in Germany, who led the study. “Rather than seeing a robot as a machine consisting of electronics and plastic, they see a social character. This might explain why they succumb to peer pressure by the robots.”