Concepts about the capabilities of computers and robots

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Concepts about the capabilities of computers and robots: a test of the scope of adults' theory of mind

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ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction archive
Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE international conference on Human robot interaction table of contents

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

SESSION: Technical papers table of contents

Pages 57-64

Year of Publication: 2008

ISBN:978-1-60558-017-3

Authors

Daniel T. Levin	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Stephen S. Killingsworth	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Megan M. Saylor	Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

Sponsors

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
SIGART: ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

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Downloads (6 Weeks): 11, Downloads (12 Months): 71, Citation Count: 1

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ABSTRACT

We have previously demonstrated that people apply fundamentally different concepts to mechanical agents and human agents, assuming that mechanical agents engage in more location-based, and feature-based behaviors whereas humans engage in more goal-based, and category-based behavior. We also found that attributions about anthropomorphic agents such as robots are very similar to those about computers, unless subjects are asked to attend closely to specific intentional-appearing behaviors. In the present studies, we ask whether subjects initially do not attribute intentionality to robots because they believe that temporary limits in current technology preclude real intelligent behavior. In addition, we ask whether a basic categorization as an artifact affords lessened attributions of intentionality. We find that subjects assume that robots created with future technology may become more intentional, but will not be fully equivalent to humans, and that even a fully human-controlled robot will not be as intentional as a human. These results suggest that subjects strongly distinguish intelligent agents based on intentionality, and that the basic living/mechanical distinction is powerful enough, even in adults, to make it difficult for adults to assent to the possibility that mechanical things can be fully intentional.

REFERENCES

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