Exploring the abuse of robots
Christoph Bartneck | Eindhoven University of Technology
Robots have been introduced into our society, but their social role is still unclear. A critical issue is whether the robot’s exhibition of intelligent behaviour leads to the users’ perception of the robot as being a social actor, similar to the way in which people treat computers and media as social actors. The first experiment mimicked Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment, but on a robot. The participants were asked to administer electric shocks to a robot, and the results show that people have fewer concerns about abusing robots than about abusing other people. We refined the methodology for the second experiment by intensifying the social dilemma of the users. The participants were asked to kill the robot. In this experiment, the intelligence of the robot and the gender of the participants were the independent variables, and the users’ destructive behaviour towards the robot the dependent variable. Several practical and methodological problems compromised the acquired data, but we can conclude that the robot’s intelligence had a significant influence on the users’ destructive behaviour. We discuss the encountered problems and suggest improvements. We also speculate on whether the users’ perception of the robot as being “sort of alive” may have influenced the participants’ abusive behaviour.
Keywords: robots, perceived intelligence, abuse, killing
Published online: 15 December 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.3.04bar
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.3.04bar
Cited by
Cited by 48 other publications
Aroyo, A.M., T. Kyohei, T. Koyama, H. Takahashi, F. Rea, A. Sciutti, Y. Yoshikawa, H. Ishiguro & G. Sandini
2018.
In 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN),
► pp. 35 ff. 
Babel, Franziska, Johannes M. Kraus & Martin Baumann
2021. Development and Testing of Psychological Conflict Resolution Strategies for Assertive Robots to Resolve Human–Robot Goal Conflict.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7
Bartneck, Christoph & Merel Keijsers
2020. The morality of abusing a robot.
Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics 11:1 ► pp. 271 ff.
Brščić, Dražen, Hiroyuki Kidokoro, Yoshitaka Suehiro & Takayuki Kanda
2015.
In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction,
► pp. 59 ff.
Carlson, Zachary, Louise Lemmon, MacCallister Higgins, David Frank, Roya Salek Shahrezaie & David Feil-Seifer
2019. Perceived Mistreatment and Emotional Capability Following Aggressive Treatment of Robots and Computers.
International Journal of Social Robotics 11:5 ► pp. 727 ff.
Carolus, Astrid, Carolin Wienrich, Anna Törke, Tobias Friedel, Christian Schwietering & Mareike Sperzel
2021. ‘Alexa, I feel for you!’ Observers’ Empathetic Reactions towards a Conversational Agent.
Frontiers in Computer Science 3
Coghlan, Simon, Frank Vetere, Jenny Waycott & Barbara Barbosa Neves
2019. Could Social Robots Make Us Kinder or Crueller to Humans and Animals?.
International Journal of Social Robotics 11:5 ► pp. 741 ff.
de Graaf, Maartje Margaretha Allegonda & Somaya Ben Allouch
2017. The Influence of Prior Expectations of a Robot’s Lifelikeness on Users’ Intentions to Treat a Zoomorphic Robot as a Companion.
International Journal of Social Robotics 9:1 ► pp. 17 ff.
Desideri, Lorenzo, Cristina Ottaviani, Massimiliano Malavasi, Roberto di Marzio & Paola Bonifacci
2019. Emotional processes in human-robot interaction during brief cognitive testing.
Computers in Human Behavior 90 ► pp. 331 ff.
Duan, Jiali, Qian Wang, Lerrel Pinto, C.-C. Jay Kuo & Stefanos Nikolaidis
2019.
In 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS),
► pp. 1056 ff.
Festerling, Janik & Iram Siraj
2021. Anthropomorphizing Technology: A Conceptual Review of Anthropomorphism Research and How it Relates to Children’s Engagements with Digital Voice Assistants.
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
Goldie, Peter
2010.
In Emotions and Risky Technologies [The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, 5],
► pp. 127 ff.
Gordon, John‐Stewart & David J. Gunkel
2021. Moral Status and Intelligent Robots.
The Southern Journal of Philosophy
Gunkel, David J.
2018. The other question: can and should robots have rights?.
Ethics and Information Technology 20:2 ► pp. 87 ff.
Harris, Jamie & Jacy Reese Anthis
2021. The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities: A Literature Review.
Science and Engineering Ethics 27:4
Hildt, Elisabeth
2021. What Sort of Robots Do We Want to Interact With? Reflecting on the Human Side of Human-Artificial Intelligence Interaction.
Frontiers in Computer Science 3
Hortensius, Ruud & Emily S. Cross
2018. From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1426:1 ► pp. 93 ff.
Hortensius, Ruud, Felix Hekele & Emily S. Cross
2018. The Perception of Emotion in Artificial Agents.
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems 10:4 ► pp. 852 ff.
Kang, Youngjin
2021. Robot Death and Human Grief in Films: Qualitative Study.
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying ► pp. 003022282110381 ff.
Keijsers, Merel, Hussain Kazmi, Friederike Eyssel & Christoph Bartneck
2021. Teaching Robots a Lesson: Determinants of Robot Punishment.
International Journal of Social Robotics 13:1 ► pp. 41 ff.
Kolling, Thorsten, Stefanie Baisch, Arthur Schall, Stefanie Selic, Saskia Rühl, Ziyon Kim, Holger Rossberg, Barbara Klein, Johannes Pantel, Frank Oswald & Monika Knopf
2016.
In Emotions, Technology, and Health,
► pp. 85 ff.
Küster, Dennis, Aleksandra Swiderska & David Gunkel
2021. I saw it on YouTube! How online videos shape perceptions of mind, morality, and fears about robots.
New Media & Society 23:11 ► pp. 3312 ff.
Menne, Isabelle M.
2017.
In Social Robotics [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10652],
► pp. 365 ff.
Menne, Isabelle M., Christin Schnellbacher & Frank Schwab
2016.
In Social Robotics [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 9979],
► pp. 372 ff.
Menne, Isabelle M. & Frank Schwab
2018. Faces of Emotion: Investigating Emotional Facial Expressions Towards a Robot.
International Journal of Social Robotics 10:2 ► pp. 199 ff.
Mieczkowski, Hannah, Sunny Xun Liu, Jeffrey Hancock & Byron Reeves
2019.
In 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI),
► pp. 222 ff.
Moore, Dylan, Rebecca Currano, Michael Shanks & David Sirkin
2020.
In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction,
► pp. 201 ff.
Nomura, Tatsuya, Takayuki Kanda, Hiroyoshi Kidokoro, Yoshitaka Suehiro & Sachie Yamada
2016. Why do children abuse robots?.
Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 17:3 ► pp. 347 ff.
Patel, Himalaya & Karl F. MacDorman
2015. Sending an Avatar to Do a Human's Job: Compliance with Authority Persists Despite the Uncanny Valley.
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 24:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Phan, Raphaël C.-W. & Elizabeth Sheppard
2020. Emotional manifestations of humanoids of the future.
Journal of Future Robot Life 1:1 ► pp. 91 ff.
Quick, Oliver Santiago
2022. Empathizing and Sympathizing With Robots: Implications for Moral Standing.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI 8
Riddoch, Katie A. & Emily. S. Cross
2021. “Hit the Robot on the Head With This Mallet” – Making a Case for Including More Open Questions in HRI Research.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI 8
Rosenthal-von der Pütten, Astrid M., Frank P. Schulte, Sabrina C. Eimler, Sabrina Sobieraj, Laura Hoffmann, Stefan Maderwald, Matthias Brand & Nicole C. Krämer
2014. Investigations on empathy towards humans and robots using fMRI.
Computers in Human Behavior 33 ► pp. 201 ff.
Rosenthal-von der Pütten, Astrid M., Nicole C. Krämer, Laura Hoffmann, Sabrina Sobieraj & Sabrina C. Eimler
2013. An Experimental Study on Emotional Reactions Towards a Robot.
International Journal of Social Robotics 5:1 ► pp. 17 ff.
Rossmy, Beat, Sarah Theres Völkel, Elias Naphausen, Patricia Kimm, Alexander Wiethoff & Andreas Muxel
2020.
In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference,
► pp. 179 ff.
Sanoubari, Elaheh, James Young, Andrew Houston & Kerstin Dautenhahn
2021.
In 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN),
► pp. 931 ff.
Sauer, Vanessa, Axel Sauer & Alexander Mertens
2021. Zoomorphic Gestures for Communicating Cobot States.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 6:2 ► pp. 2179 ff.
Seymour, William & Max Van Kleek
2021. Exploring Interactions Between Trust, Anthropomorphism, and Relationship Development in Voice Assistants.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5:CSCW2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Sharkey, Amanda J. C.
2016. Should we welcome robot teachers?.
Ethics and Information Technology 18:4 ► pp. 283 ff.
Strait, Megan, Gordon Briggs & Matthias Scheutz
2013.
In 2013 Humaine Association Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction,
► pp. 505 ff.
Strait, Megan K., Cynthia Aguillon, Virginia Contreras & Noemi Garcia
2017.
In 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN),
► pp. 1418 ff.
Strengers, Yolande, Lizhen Qu, Qiongkai Xu & Jarrod Knibbe
2020.
In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
► pp. 1 ff.
Suzuki, Yutaka, Lisa Galli, Ayaka Ikeda, Shoji Itakura & Michiteru Kitazaki
2015. Measuring empathy for human and robot hand pain using electroencephalography.
Scientific Reports 5:1
Tan, Xiang Zhi, Marynel Vázquez, Elizabeth J. Carter, Cecilia G. Morales & Aaron Steinfeld
2018.
In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction,
► pp. 169 ff.
Vanman, Eric J. & Arvid Kappas
2019. “Danger, Will Robinson!” The challenges of social robots for intergroup relations.
Social and Personality Psychology Compass 13:8
Völkel, Sarah Theres, Ramona Schödel, Daniel Buschek, Clemens Stachl, Verena Winterhalter, Markus Bühner & Heinrich Hussmann
2020.
In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
► pp. 1 ff.
Yamada, Sachie, Takayuki Kanda & Kanako Tomita
2020.
In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction,
► pp. 191 ff.
Złotowski, Jakub, Diane Proudfoot, Kumar Yogeeswaran & Christoph Bartneck
2015. Anthropomorphism: Opportunities and Challenges in Human–Robot Interaction.
International Journal of Social Robotics 7:3 ► pp. 347 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.