Most kids know it’s wrong to yell or hit someone, even if they don’t always keep their hands to themselves. But what if that person’s name is Alexa?
A new study from developmental psychologists at Duke asked children exactly that, plus just how smart and sensitive the Alexa smart speaker was compared to its earth-dwelling cousin, the Roomba, which is an independent vacuum.
Children between the ages of 4 and 11 judged Alexa to have more human-like thoughts and emotions than Roomba. But despite the marked difference in intelligence, neither the kids felt that Roomba nor Alexa deserved to be yelled at or hurt. But this feeling diminished as the children progressed into adolescence. The results appear online April 10 in the journal Nature Developmental Psychology.
The research was inspired in part by lead author Teresa Flanagan seeing how Hollywood portrays human-robot interactions in shows like HBO’s “Westworld.”
“In Westworld and the movie Ex Machina, we see how adults can interact with robots in these cruel and horrific ways,” said Flanagan, a visiting researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke. “But how do children interact with them?”
To find out, Flanagan recruited 127 children, ages 4 to 11, who were visiting a science museum with their families. The children watched a 20-second clip of each technology, and then were asked some questions about each device.
Working under the guidance of Tamar Kushner, PhD, graduate advisor and faculty member at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Flanagan analyzed the survey data and found some mostly reassuring results.
Overall, the children determined that both Alexa and Roomba probably wouldn’t feel tickling and wouldn’t feel pain if pinched, indicating that they can’t feel physical sensations the way people can. However, they gave Alexa, but not Roomba, high scores for mental and emotional abilities, such as the ability to think or get upset after someone is mean.
“Even without a body, young children think Alexa has emotions and a mind,” Flanagan said. “And it’s not that they think every technology has emotions and brains — they don’t think Roomba does — so it’s something special about Alexa’s ability to communicate verbally.”
Regardless of the different perceived abilities of the two techniques, children of all ages agreed that it was wrong to hit or yell at the instruments.
“Kids don’t seem to think the Roomba has as much brainpower as thinking or feeling,” Flanagan said. “But the kids still think we should treat her well. We shouldn’t hit her or yell at her even if she doesn’t hear our screams.”
However, the older children got more, the more they were informed that it would be a little more acceptable to attack the technology.
“Kids around the age of four and five seem to think you don’t have the liberty to commit a moral transgression, like attacking someone,” Flanagan said. “But as they get older, they seem to think it’s not cool, but you have the freedom to do it.”
The study findings provide insight 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 children by thanking Siri or its more sophisticated counterpart ChatGPT for their help?
For now, Flanagan and Kushner are trying to understand why kids think it’s wrong to abuse home technology.
In their study, one 10-year-old said it wasn’t OK to yell at the technology because “the microphone sensors might break if I shouted loudly” while another 10-year-old said it wasn’t okay because “the robot would feel really sad.” “.
“It’s interesting with these technologies because there’s another aspect: It’s a piece of royalty,” Flanagan said. “Do the kids think you shouldn’t hit these things because it’s morally wrong, or because they’re someone’s property and might break?”
This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (SL-1955280, BCS-1823658).