BROADCASTS.com

b'Phil and Stephen discuss new research that shows how people respond differently to robots based on what the robots say to them. Is this proof that humans are easily manipulated by robots or does it offer hope that, when the time comes, people will treat sentient robots right?\\n\\nNew study finds it\\u2019s harder to turn off a robot when it\\u2019s begging for its life\\n\\nIn roughly half of experiments, the robot protested, telling participants it was afraid of the dark and even begging: \\u201cNo! Please do not switch me off!\\u201d When this happened, the human volunteers were likely to refuse to turn the bot off. Of the 43 volunteers who heard Nao\\u2019s pleas, 13 refused. And the remaining 30 took, on average, twice as long to comply compared to those who did not not hear the desperate cries at all. (Just imagine that scene from The Good Place for reference.)\\n\\nWhat are the potential downsides to this finding?\\n\\nPeople offering empathy where it is not needed. Can robots be used to manipulate people to do things they otherwise wouldn\\u2019t do?\\n\\nWhat potential upsides do we see?\\n\\nWhen in doubt, empathy is maybe not a bad response. Better to apply it to things that don\\u2019t need it than to withhold it from those who do?\\n\\nAlso, is this experiment kind of the reverse of the famous Milgram Experiment? https://bit.ly/1MKwZx3 In this case, it looks like the test subjects refused to obey orders that violated their consciences!\\xa0\\n\\n\\n\\nWT 463-781\\n\\nEternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\\n\\nVideos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.'