How Human Beings Regard The Machines With Awareness:A Theoretical Framework And Empirical Study

In recent years,the technologies of intelligent robots have developed very fast,and a growing number of industrial or service robots have entered our society.It is likely that in the near future the human society will convert into a community in which we co-exist with the intelligent robots.The rise of the intelligent robots may be influential to our society in the future,thus this paper tries to discuss this influence through the perspective of how the public regard the intelligent robots.This paper first introduces a basic concept:machine with awareness.Then this paper discusses the feasibility of machine with awareness.This paper believes the machine with awareness is feasible and may be realized by the middle and later stages of this century.Then this paper explores on how the public regard the machine with awareness by three empirical researches.The results of the first research showed the disassociation between the explicit and implicit attitudes towards humanoid robots.In more detail,the first research showed people tend to explicitly manifest a positive attitude towards humanoid robots while the implicit results showed the contrary,as the subjects usually related the humanoid robots with threatening stimulus.For pet robots which are obviously without self-awareness,both implicit and explicit attitudes were positive.The implicit attitude may better reveal the real attitude of the subjects,because the implicit attitude is an automatic,uncontrollable mental process.In short,people have different implicit attitudes towards pet robots and humanoid robots.This difference may be caused by the fact that the subjects perceived the humanoid robots as an ethnic group that will compete for living resources.In order to increase the validity of the first experiment,the second research applied a new paradigm to measure the attitudes towards humanoid robots.The results of the second research conformed to the first research,and gave new explanations to explain the implicit-explicit difference on neural level.The third experiment tried to manipulate the subjects' passive implicit attitude towards humanoid robots.The results of the third experiment showed this passive implicit attitude could be improved by the manipulation.Finally,this paper discusses from how we should co-exist with machines with awareness.And this paper believes in the future the machines with awareness should undergone strict ethic test,while the human society should give these robots corresponding rights and status.