Researchers Were Actually in Control
Robot fools people into believing it can think like a human
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A robot that looks very human and can talk with people in a friendly way made them believe it can think for itself. Scientists called this robot ‘iCub.’ It’s like a child-sized robot, made by Italian scientists, to learn how people and robots can get along.
iCub can do many things that look just like what humans do, like moving its body and talking. In 2016, it even went on a TV show in Italy and impressed everyone by doing Tai Chi & having smart conversations with people.
In a recent study, researchers used iCub, a robot, to interact with people while they watched videos. Sometimes, iCub acted like a friendly human, greeting people and showing emotions like joy and surprise.
Other times, it acted more like a machine, making robot-like beeping sounds and ignoring people. The study found that when iCub acted like a human, people thought it had its own thoughts and feelings.
But when it acted like a machine, they didn’t. This result was expected by the researchers, but they were pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.
It’s important to note that iCub can learn to some extent, like a computer, but it’s still far from being truly self-aware, according to the researchers.
Altering behaviors
In all the experiments, one person sat in a room with iCub and watched short animal videos. The scientists chose this activity because it’s something people often do with friends and family. They made sure the videos only had animals and no humans or robots to avoid any biases.
In the first round of tests, iCub was set to be friendly. It greeted people, introduced itself, and asked for their names. It also made sure to look at people with its camera ‘eyes.’
During the video-watching, iCub acted like a human. It laughed when something was funny in the video and seemed amazed by beautiful scenes.
In the second set of tests, iCub didn’t talk to the people. While they watched videos, iCub only made robot-like sounds, such as beeps like a car does when it gets close to something. In these tests, iCub’s eye cameras were turned off, so it couldn’t look at people.
Intentional vs mechanistic
Before and after the experiments, the researchers had participants take a test called the InStance Test (IST). They made this test in 2019 to find out what people think about the robot’s mind.
In the IST, participants saw 34 different situations with the robot in daily activities. They had to choose between two sentences for each situation.
One sentence talked about the robot like it had feelings (for example: ‘iCub wants’), &other sentence talked about what the robot does (e.g: ‘iCub does’).
For instance, in one situation where iCub picked a tool from a table, participants chose between sentences like ‘the robot grabbed the closest object’ (mechanical) and ‘the robot was fascinated by tool use’ (intentional).
The researchers found that if people saw iCub acting like a human during the experiments, they were more likely to choose sentences with feelings in IST.
This suggests that iCub’s human-like actions changed how people saw it. But for those who interacted with the more robotic iCub, they kept choosing mechanical sentences in the second test.
This shows that people need to see a robot acting in a way they can relate to in order to think it’s human-like.
Next steps
These results suggest that people can build social connections with robots, as the study indicates.
This could be important for using robots in healthcare, especially for older patients, the researchers pointed out.
However, the scientists also noted that there is a lot more to discover about how people and robots interact and form bonds.
One of the main questions the team is trying to answer is whether people can form bonds with robots that don’t look human but act like humans.
The researchers find it hard to predict if a robot with a less human-like appearance would create the same feeling of similarity,” they explained. In the future, they plan to redo the experiments with robots of various shapes & sizes.
The researchers also argue that for humans to build lasting bonds with robots, people need to let go of their ideas about robots becoming sentient, which is often seen in science fiction and can make people worry.
“People tend to fear things they don’t know,” the researchers said. “But robots are just machines, they are less capable than what’s shown in popular culture.”
To help people get over this fear, scientists can teach the public more about what robots can and can’t do. Once people understand, they will find the machines less scary.
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