Contents
The video with the Atlas robot, where a person “just like that” hits him with a stick, has collected millions of views. Our reaction is indignation, anger and even a desire to take revenge on the offender.
Because culture has images of good robots
“Most of us have probably seen films where robots evoke warm feelings,” suggests anthropologist Marina Butovskaya. — They help goodies («Star Wars»), take the side of a person in the fight («Transformers»), and sometimes seek to find emotions and experience love («Robot named Chappie»). We like the image of a good robot, and the distance between him and a person is not so great.” The robot in this context is perceived more as «one of us», and not as someone alien and dangerous. And in human evolution, the factor of nepotism plays an important role — the provision of various advantages to «one’s own kind.»
Because the resemblance of a robot to a person is not one hundred percent
«Humanity» plays an important role in shaping our emotions. But we sympathize more strongly with the Atlas robot, because we immediately see that he is still not a person. The complete portrait resemblance of a robot to a person rather frightens us and causes alertness, ”says psychologist Astrid Marieke Rosenthal-von der Pütten, author of several studies in this area.
“The general appearance of the robot, the resemblance to a person makes you forget for a while that this is a soulless machine”
Because the Atlas robot is quite similar to a human
Marina Butovskaya notes that bodily empathy is especially pronounced in us. It implies the ability to sort of move into the body of another being, to feel his experiences, pain. And the Atlas robot provides such an opportunity. “The general appearance of the robot, its resemblance to a person makes us forget for a while that it is a soulless machine, and consider it, say, as a person in a space suit,” suggests Marina Butovskaya. “When they beat him, an unpleasant feeling of humiliation is transmitted to us, against which, of course, we internally protest.”
Because empathy extends to inanimate objects as well.
“The ability to “animate the inanimate” is characteristic to the maximum extent of children and representatives of primitive peoples. However, it is also inherent in adult representatives of Western cultures, — says psychologist Yevgeny Osin. “For example, in one experiment, an empty box is placed in front of a group of people and asked to imagine that this box contains something valuable to them. And then the experimenter suddenly kicks the box with his foot. And very many participants noted that they experience obvious psychological discomfort at this moment.