Robots Can Be Pretty Convincing

Would you think twice about turning off your TV if it asked you not to? Probably! A study performed by a team of German scientists shows that after people have a conversation with a robot, they began to respect its spoken desires not to be turned off.

Eighty-nine people were asked to communicate with a Nao robot, an adorable companion bot which are used in marketing, classrooms, and even working to help autistic children develop social skills. Nao robots have six omnidirectional microphones and two loudspeakers, combined with two eyes that each have 5-megapixel cameras for facial detection.

Participants were asked to talk with the Nao bot under the impression the test was about machine learning and that speaking with the robot would help it grow smarter. Participants were given two tasks. The first of these tasks was to create a schedule for a week out of a number of activities and explain to the robot why they wanted a particular activity, like going to the movies or the gym, on a particular day. The second of these activities involved answering a series of simple questions from the robot, such as if the participant preferred pizza or pasta.

The robot used a number of positive social concepts in these conversations, from sharing information about itself, such as preferring sunshine to rain, to humor, when it joked that it would eat a pizza as big as its body if it could. The robot would show memory of prior discussion topics and tell the participant that it hoped to speak with them again.