It’s said that prejudice is a learned behavior and not one children are naturally inclined to. Maybe that’s the case within our own species, but let a robot loose around a group of kids, and it tells a very different story. Researchers in Tokyo noticed that young children, primarily those in kindergarten to fifth grade, had a tendency to inflict abuse upon the machine, ranging from simple taunts to outright physical harm. The severity depended on one major factor — whether a parent or adult was present.
The engineers placed a droid-like robot in a mall, with no agenda or programming other than to freely move about the floor. As with any busy shopping center, you often have to navigate your way around people, and more precisely, their children as you amble about to your next spending destination. While in most cases when the robot met with one of these three-foot obstructions, the children happily obliged and moved out of its way.
There were some kids, however, that didn’t take kindly to the metallic foreigner. Video showed children who would point and laugh at the robot, while others created a human force field around it; not allowing it to move forward. It escalated to hitting, kicking, and even throwing things. One major piece of programming the robot had was not to advance when faced with an obstacle, so it did nothing to protect itself or alter its course.
Another disturbing thing was documented: the more children present, the more abuse was inflicted upon the robot. It appears that a group mentality would entice the tykes to escalate the attacks. The robot, regardless if it was lifelike in appearance, is seen as a non-human and either a threat or more likely, an easy target for young kids who are still learning the nuances of social behavior.
The research team took note of this and reprogrammed the robot with an algorithm that would help it detect the level of violence a child may inflict upon it based on the interaction time and proximity of said child. When faced with this threat, the robot would alter its course to a more densely populated area, or if it detected an adult nearby, would head towards that direction. The key being finding a person, or groups of people, taller than four feet, six inches, which the robot was programmed to define as an adult. Then the robot would wait until it felt safe enough to move on.
The team spoke with the children afterwards about why they attacked the robot. 22% said they did it out of curiosity, 17% said they joined in because of their peers, a staggering 35% said they physically assaulted the robot out of enjoyment, and one child said “he explicitly intended to threaten the robot.” The study also concluded that over half of the kids believed the robot was aware of the pain they inflicted on it.
In short, many of these kids lacked any empathy for the robot. This is very similar to findings from children that exhibit traits of animal abuse. While the robot may be seen as having the capacity to feel pain, and even awareness of said pain, it did not stop some of these children from attacking it. The team concluded that more studies need to be done to see is a more physical human-like appearance would engender more empathy for the robot.