Kids judge Alexa smarter than Roomba, but say both deserve kindness
Four to 11-year-olds deem it wrong to attack either semi-intelligent
robot

Date:
April 10, 2023
Source:
Duke University
Summary:
Most kids know it's wrong to yell or hit someone, but what if that
someone is a robot named Alexa? A new study asked kids how smart
and sensitive they thought the virtual assistant was compared to
a robotic vacuum. Four- to eleven-year-olds rated Alexa as more
intelligent than the Roomba but felt neither deserve to be yelled
at or otherwise harmed.


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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Most kids know it's wrong to yell or hit someone, even if they don't
always keep their hands to themselves. But what about if that someone's
name is Alexa?

==========================================================================
A new study from Duke developmental psychologists asked kids just that,
as well as how smart and sensitive they thought the smart speaker Alexa
was compared to its floor-dwelling cousin Roomba, an autonomous vacuum.

Four- to eleven-year-olds judged Alexa to have more human-like thoughts
and emotions than Roomba. But despite the perceived difference in
intelligence, kids felt neither the Roomba nor the Alexa deserve to be
yelled at or harmed.

That feeling dwindled as kids advanced towards adolescence, however. The findings appear online April 10 in the journal Developmental Psychology.

The research was inspired in part by lead author Teresa Flanagan seeing
how Hollywood depicts human-robot interactions in shows like HBO's
"Westworld." "In Westworld and the movie Ex Machina, we see how adults
might interact with robots in these very cruel and horrible ways,"
said Flanagan, a visiting scholar in the department of psychology & neuroscience at Duke. "But how would kids interact with them?" To find
out, Flanagan recruited 127 children aged four to eleven who were visiting
a science museum with their families. The kids watched a 20-second clip
of each technology, and then were asked a few questions about each device.

Working under the guidance of Tamar Kushnir, Ph.D., her graduate advisor
and a Duke Institute for Brain Sciences faculty member, Flanagan analyzed
the survey data and found some mostly reassuring results.

Overall, kids decided that both the Alexa and Roomba probably aren't
ticklish and wouldn't feel pain if they got pinched, suggesting they
can't feel physical sensations like people do. However, they gave Alexa,
but not the Roomba, high marks for mental and emotional capabilities,
like being able to think or getting upset after someone is mean to it.

"Even without a body, young children think the Alexa has emotions and
a mind," Flanagan said. "And it's not that they think every technology
has emotions and minds -- they don't think the Roomba does -- so it's
something special about the Alexa's ability to communicate verbally." Regardless of the different perceived abilities of the two technologies, children across all ages agreed it was wrong to hit or yell at the
machines.

"Kids don't seem to think a Roomba has much mental abilities like thinking
or feeling," Flanagan said. "But kids still think we should treat it
well. We shouldn't hit or yell at it even if it can't hear us yelling."
The older kids got however, the more they reported it would be slightly
more acceptable to attack technology.

"Four- and five-year-olds seem to think you don't have the freedom to
make a moral violation, like attacking someone," Flanagan said. "But
as they get older, they seem to think it's not great, but you do have
the freedom to do it." The study's findings offer insights into the
evolving relationship between children and technology and raise important questions about the ethical treatment of AI and machines in general,
and as parents. Should adults, for example, model good behavior for their
kids by thanking Siri or its more sophisticated counterpart ChatGPT for
their help? For now, Flanagan and Kushnir are trying to understand why children think it is wrong to assault home technology.

In their study, one 10-year-old said it was not okay to yell at the
technology because, "the microphone sensors might break if you yell
too loudly," whereas another 10-year-old said it was not okay because
"the robot will actually feel really sad." "It's interesting with these technologies because there's another aspect: it's a piece of property," Flanagan said. "Do kids think you shouldn't hit these things because it's morally wrong, or because it's somebody's property and it might break?"
This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (SL- 1955280, BCS-1823658).

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Mind_&_Brain
# Child_Psychology # Child_Development # K-12_Education
# Learning_Disorders
o Computers_&_Math
# Educational_Technology # Video_Games # Robotics #
Artificial_Intelligence
* RELATED_TERMS
o Robot o Robot_calibration o Industrial_robot o
Virtual_reality o Robotic_surgery o Android o Humanoid_robot
o Artificial_intelligence

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Duke_University. Note: Content may
be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Teresa Flanagan, Gavin Wong, Tamar Kushnir. The minds of machines:
Children's beliefs about the experiences, thoughts, and morals
of familiar interactive technologies.. Developmental Psychology,
2023; DOI: 10.1037/dev0001524 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230410123646.htm

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