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Children Are Susceptible to Peer Pressure From Robots

posted by mrpg on Friday August 17 2018, @03:49AM   
from the just-say-False dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

[...] In a study published today in the journal Science Robotics, researchers from Germany and the UK demonstrated that children are susceptible to peer pressure from robots. The findings, say the researchers, show that, as robots and AIs become integrated into social spaces, we need to be careful about the influence they wield, especially on the young.

The paper's authors ask, "For example, if robots recommend products, services, or preferences, will compliance [...] be higher than with more traditional advertising methods?" They note that robots are being introduced to plenty of other domains where social influence could be important, including health care, education, and security.

[...] Although it's the susceptibility of the children that leaps out in this experiment, the fact that the adults were not swayed by the bots is also significant. That's because it goes against an established theory in sociology known as "computer are social actors," or CASA. This theory, which was first outlined in a 1996 book, states that humans tend to interact with computers as if they were fellow humans. The results of this study show that there are limits to this theory, although Belpaeme says he and his colleagues were not surprised by this.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/15/17688120/social-influence-robots-ai-peer-pressure-children

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Original Submission

• Robots are only peers for children? Robots are only peers for children? (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 17 2018, @11:15AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 17 2018, @11:15AM (#722756)

  Although it's the susceptibility of the children that leaps out in this experiment, the fact that the adults were not swayed by the bots is also significant. That's because it goes against an established theory in sociology known as "computer are social actors,"

  I guess it depends how you look at it. Maybe children look at robots as "cool, smart things that try to help us" while adults view them as "stupid things made by virgin nerds trying to tell me how to live my life". Peer pressure only works if you look up to something, not if you look down on something.

  Adults will tend to look at robots as slaves, subservient to them. Look at the world when slavery was more common - did slave owners feel peer pressure from their slaves or from other slave owners? It's called *PEER PRESSURE* for a reason. You need to identify with something as a *peer* in the first place.

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• Re:Robots are only peers for children? (Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 17 2018, @03:31PM

  by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday August 17 2018, @03:31PM (#722830)

  Yeah, adults only do what they are told without questioning when instructed by a commercial or news program.

  --
  "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh

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