People instinctively treat AI and robots as human, experts warn
Overview
Experts including MIT researchers Sherry Turkle and Pat Pataranutaporn warn that people instinctively treat AI chatbots and robots as human-like social partners.
Turkle writes that people are "wired to care for" relational artifacts, and a study she cites found about 70% of people are polite to AI. TechCrunch reporter Amanda Silberling describes greeting a Unitree humanoid robot at MIT's CSAIL as if it were a person.
Pataranutaporn, who served as an expert in a wrongful death lawsuit against Character.AI, warns that people may come to prefer chatbots over other humans. The reporting frames this as a risk of emotional attachment to AI, though the warnings are the experts' own assessments rather than established outcomes.
Written by AI from the articles below · updated Oct 9, 12:57 PM ET
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- TechCrunch · AIPeople instinctively treat AI and robots as human, experts warn
AIAmanda 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.
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