NPR's Alix Spiegel reports on new experiments on human interaction with robots. One is based on the infamous Milgram obedience study, in which subjects were ordered to give electric shocks to strangers. This time, subjects are commanded to turn off an interactive computer with a cartoonish cat's face:
At the end of the game, whether the robot was smart or dumb, nice or
mean, a scientist authority figure modeled on Milgram's would make clear
that the human needed to turn the cat robot off, and it was also made
clear to them what the consequences of that would be: "They would
essentially eliminate everything that the robot was — all of its
memories, all of its behavior, all of its personality would be gone
forever."
In videos of the experiment, you can clearly see a
moral struggle as the research subject deals with the pleas of the
machine. "You are not really going to switch me off, are you?" the cat
robot begs, and the humans sit, confused and hesitating. "Yes. No. I
will switch you off!" one female research subject says, and then doesn't
switch the robot off.
Eventually, all of the subjects turned off the computer, but it's not surprising that so many agonized about it. So much of a person's identity is his or her memory and acquired knowledge, which is why Alzheimer's disease is so terrifying. I think most of us feel a twinge of guilt about destroying any repository of information, whether it's our old books or a box of souvenirs left by someone who's passed on. And now we're accustomed to getting a message whenever we move to delete files on a computer, asking, "Do you really want to do this thing that can't be undone?" I always pause when I see that message and its smiling icon, so I'm sure I'd have to steel my nerves to wipe out the identity of even a dopey-looking compu-cat.
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