“The robot made me do it”
From: University of Southampton
December 11, 2020 -- New research has
shown robots can encourage people to take greater risks in a simulated gambling
scenario than they would if there was nothing to influence their behaviours.
Increasing our understanding of whether robots can affect risk-taking could
have clear ethical, practical and policy implications, which this study set out
to explore.
Dr Yaniv Hanoch, Associate Professor in
Risk Management at the University of Southampton who led the study explained,
"We know that peer pressure can lead to higher risk-taking behaviour. With
the ever-increasing scale of interaction between humans and technology, both
online and physically, it is crucial that we understand more about whether
machines can have a similar impact."
This new research, published in the
journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, involved
180 undergraduate students taking the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a
computer assessment that asks participants to press the spacebar on a keyboard
to inflate a balloon displayed on the screen. With each press of the spacebar,
the balloon inflates slightly, and 1 penny is added to the player's
"temporary money bank." The balloons can explode randomly, meaning
the player loses any money they have won for that balloon and they have the
option to "cash-in" before this happens and move on to the next
balloon.
One-third of the participants took the
test in a room on their own (the control group), one third took the test
alongside a robot that only provided them with the instructions but was silent
the rest of the time and the final, the experimental group, took the test with
the robot providing instruction as well as speaking encouraging statements such
as "why did you stop pumping?"
The results showed that the group who
were encouraged by the robot took more risks, blowing up their balloons
significantly more frequently than those in the other groups did. They also
earned more money overall. There was no significant difference in the
behaviours of the students accompanied by the silent robot and those with no
robot.
Dr Hanoch said: "We saw
participants in the control condition scale back their risk-taking behaviour
following a balloon explosion, whereas those in the experimental condition
continued to take as much risk as before. So, receiving direct encouragement
from a risk-promoting robot seemed to override participants' direct experiences
and instincts."
The researcher now believe that further
studies are needed to see whether similar results would emerge from human
interaction with other artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as digital
assistants or on-screen avatars.
Dr Hanoch concluded, "With the wide
spread of AI technology and its interactions with humans, this is an area that
needs urgent attention from the research community."
"On the one hand, our results might
raise alarms about the prospect of robots causing harm by increasing risky
behavior. On the other hand, our data points to the possibility of using robots
and AI in preventive programs, such as anti-smoking campaigns in schools, and
with hard to reach populations, such as addicts."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201211100646.htm
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