Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 18 submissions in the queue.
posted by mrpg on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the obviously dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The majority of robots are white. Do a Google image search for "robot" and see for yourself: The whiteness is overwhelming. There are some understandable reasons for this; for example, when we asked several different companies why their social home robots were white, the answer was simply because white most conveniently fits in with other home decor.

But a new study suggests that the color white can also be a social cue that results in a perception of race, especially if it's presented in an anthropomorphic context, such as being the color of the outer shell of a humanoid robot. In addition, the same issue applies to robots that are black in color, according to the study. The findings suggest that people perceive robots with anthropomorphic features to have race, and as a result, the same race-related prejudices that humans experience extend to robots.

Source: Humans Show Racial Bias Towards Robots of Different Colors: Study


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:05PM (2 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:05PM (#710398) Homepage Journal

    "Race. Right. Because everything associated with color comes down to race."

    SJW's always project. Because they, themselves are inherently racist, they assume that everything and everyone around them is as well.

    What's funny is are the inherent contradictions. Light-skinned people think that a tan (i.e., darker skin) makes them more attractive [cosmopolitan.com]. Meanwhile, dark skinned people want lighter skin [afritorial.com] and prefer lighter skinned mates [huffingtonpost.com].

    And practically everybody finds something to get offended about...

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Troll=1, Insightful=2, Informative=3, Total=6
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:49PM (#710458) Journal

    Racial bias is real. It's also not exclusive to any one group. Most communities across America are predominantly white, so they accept the fiction peddled to them by the Masters that only white people are racist; that is, they don't have enough contact with minorities to learn any different, and the minorities they do have contact with are such extreme minorities that those don't dare say what they really think. Others who live in large urban areas with significant numbers of minorities learn otherwise, but perform double-think so as not to buck the Narrative that "only white people have racial biases."

    Racial bias is not a fiction, and there are white people who are biases against other races.

    But projecting that onto a study like this, without doing anything to parse out exactly why people might prefer white robots to other colors, weakens the discipline and mocks the serious subject of racial bias.

    Their sloppy study offends me.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:58AM

      by Arik (4543) on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:58AM (#710690) Journal
      "Racial bias is real. It's also not exclusive to any one group."

      It's not really racial, it's communitarian and pseudo-racial, but otherwise yes, that's very true.

      "Most communities across America are predominantly white, so they accept the fiction peddled to them by the Masters that only white people are racist; that is, they don't have enough contact with minorities to learn any different, and the minorities they do have contact with are such extreme minorities that those don't dare say what they really think."

      This seems a bit too pat in my experience. I've never been very shy about saying what I thought, even when I was actively getting my face kicked in by the majority at the time. I know, I know, I'm not normal, but I've known many people over the years in the same sort of position, and it just doesn't ring true to me at all. I'm sure some people are afraid to speak their mind yes, but no more than among the majority population. Probably less. You learn in that position to stick up for yourself a bit from necessity.

      But here's the thing. Not all black/brown/asian/whatever people think the same. And it's (mostly) a free country, people to some degree do live where they want to live. Someone that's comfortable living as a visible minority is going to be someone with different thoughts to someone that feels it's awfully important to live in an area where everyone looks like they do.

      To put it another way, it's extremely unlikely that the one black family in your nice suburb really hate whitey and are just afraid to say it. That's not impossible but it's so unlikely as to border on paranoid fantasy. Black racists typically prefer to live in mostly black areas, and even if they might like the idea of moving to the suburbs just to mess with their new neighbors, in reality that's an awful lot of money for a lark.

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?