November 5, 2015 at 22:41Japanese scientists have found that people sympathize with robots in much the same way as other people
A group of Japanese scientists published in the journal Nature the article " Measuring empathy for human and robot hand pain using electroencephalography ", the meaning of which is to answer the question - do people feel sympathy for robots if the latter is harmed for some reason. It turned out that robots can indeed be objects of empathy for people, while robots do not even have to be anthromorphic or receive any serious damage. The extent of this empathy was measured using electroencephalography. The article drew the attention of the NBC channel .
The experiment was arranged quite simply. Fifteen volunteers who agreed to take part in the study were shown a sequence of pictures, ranging from neutral to those where a human palm and a mechanical manipulator such as a “hand” were slightly injured, like a cut with a knife or scissors. Encephalograph sensors at that moment read the activity of the center of empathy of the human brain, and researchers could thus correlate the degree of activity with a particular photograph. As it turned out, people experience almost the same degree of empathy with robots as if it were a person. True, as the authors of the article noted, the initial phase of the activity of the empathy center, when seeing the robot get a “wound,” turned out to be a little weaker than if it were a person.
Researchers associate this behavior of people with the fact that the mechanical arm still has a semblance of anthromorphism, although it is very different from the human one. An indirect confirmation of this conclusion can be a social experiment that was conducted with a rather nondescript robot named hitchBot.. It was also assembled to test how people would relate to it in everyday life. hitchBot, assembled from cheap parts worth $ 2000, had to make several hitchhiking trips. The robot, sitting on the road, knew how to vote, ask the driver to transfer it, hitchBot, to the car and even maintain with some semblance of conversation. hitchBot was completely autonomous, but also socially active: every 20 minutes he posted on social networks photos of what he “saw”. The robot successfully completed two trips around the United States, but after starting the third from Boston to San Francisco, it soon became clear that someone had torn his head off.
There is a curious episode in the movie Terminator 2. Between the shooting and the pursuit, Sarah Connor and his son and the Terminator are with their Mexican friends. At this time, a dialogue arises between John and the T-800, during which the cyborg tries to understand why people are crying. Watching them, Sarah Connor, an adult and obviously experienced person, reflects in a philosophical vein: “Looking at John and the car, I realized that the Terminator would never leave him, would not hurt him, would never yell at him, would not get drunk will not hit him. And for him, he will always have time, he will always be there, and he is ready for everything for him to protect him. Of all the fathers I've seen in my life, this car was the best father. ”
The experiment was arranged quite simply. Fifteen volunteers who agreed to take part in the study were shown a sequence of pictures, ranging from neutral to those where a human palm and a mechanical manipulator such as a “hand” were slightly injured, like a cut with a knife or scissors. Encephalograph sensors at that moment read the activity of the center of empathy of the human brain, and researchers could thus correlate the degree of activity with a particular photograph. As it turned out, people experience almost the same degree of empathy with robots as if it were a person. True, as the authors of the article noted, the initial phase of the activity of the empathy center, when seeing the robot get a “wound,” turned out to be a little weaker than if it were a person.Researchers associate this behavior of people with the fact that the mechanical arm still has a semblance of anthromorphism, although it is very different from the human one. An indirect confirmation of this conclusion can be a social experiment that was conducted with a rather nondescript robot named hitchBot.. It was also assembled to test how people would relate to it in everyday life. hitchBot, assembled from cheap parts worth $ 2000, had to make several hitchhiking trips. The robot, sitting on the road, knew how to vote, ask the driver to transfer it, hitchBot, to the car and even maintain with some semblance of conversation. hitchBot was completely autonomous, but also socially active: every 20 minutes he posted on social networks photos of what he “saw”. The robot successfully completed two trips around the United States, but after starting the third from Boston to San Francisco, it soon became clear that someone had torn his head off.
There is a curious episode in the movie Terminator 2. Between the shooting and the pursuit, Sarah Connor and his son and the Terminator are with their Mexican friends. At this time, a dialogue arises between John and the T-800, during which the cyborg tries to understand why people are crying. Watching them, Sarah Connor, an adult and obviously experienced person, reflects in a philosophical vein: “Looking at John and the car, I realized that the Terminator would never leave him, would not hurt him, would never yell at him, would not get drunk will not hit him. And for him, he will always have time, he will always be there, and he is ready for everything for him to protect him. Of all the fathers I've seen in my life, this car was the best father. ”