People instinctively treat AI and robots as human, experts warn

Amanda Silberling describes how she greeted a Unitree humanoid robot at MIT's CSAIL as a person, and how MIT researchers Sherry Turkle and Pat Pataranutaporn say people instinctively treat chatbots as caring companions.

Turkle writes that people are "wired to care for" relational artifacts, and a study found about 70% of people are polite to AI. Pataranutaporn, who served as an expert in a wrongful death lawsuit against Character.AI, warns that people may favor chatbots over other humans.