A team of scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany has discovered that humans can be susceptible to emotional manipulation by a robot. In an article published on the PLOS ONE website, the scientists described the experiments they conducted with human volunteers interacting with robots and the conclusions they reached.
Back in 2007, a group of scientists conducted an experiment called "The pleading computer does not want to die." The volunteers were asked to turn off the robot cat, but they did not know what to do when the cat begged them not to turn it off. In a new study, this experiment was repeated using more volunteers and another robot.
Don't turn me off please
The new study involved 89 volunteers who were asked to interact with the Nao robot to help it get smarter. After the interaction, the researcher asked the volunteer to turn off the robot, but the robot asked not to. In addition to voice prompts, the robot also gestured its request. Some volunteers served as control ones - they were asked to turn off the robot, but the robot was silent.
In the end, 43 volunteers thought about whether to grant the request of the researcher or the robot. 13 of them chose to fulfill the robot's wish, and all the rest hesitated, turning off the robot, unlike the control group. Scientists' data show that humans have such a strong tendency to anthropomorphize robots that they can become victims of emotional manipulation. It was also found that the type and duration of communication before the request to turn off the robot did not affect the decision made by the volunteers.
After the experiment, many volunteers, answering questions, expressed that they refused to turn off the robot simply because it asked. Others reported feeling sorry for the robot or worried that they were doing something wrong.
Ilya Khel
Promotional video: