COULD HUMANS SOMEDAY FALL IN LOVE WITH ROBOTS?
The film 'Ex Machina', in which a computer programmer falls in love with a droid, may not be as far-fetched as you think
A new study has found that humans have the potential to emphasise with robots, even while knowing they don't have feelings.
It
follows previous warnings from experts that humans could develop
unhealthy relationships with robots, and even fall in love with them.
The
discovery was made after researchers asked people to view images of
human and humanoid robotic hands in painful situations, such as being
cut by a knife.
After
studying their electrical brain signals, they found humans responded
with similar immediate levels of empathy to both humans and robots.
But the beginning phase of the so-called 'top-down' process of empathy was weaker toward robots.
The
study was carried out by researchers at Toyohashi University of
Technology and Kyoto University in Japan, and provides the first
neurophysiological evidence of humans' ability to empathise with robots.
These results suggest that we empathise with humanoid robots in a similar way to how we empathise with other humans.
Comments
Post a Comment