Can Robots Keep Humans from Abusing Other Robots?

Robot
August 24, 2020

In an experiment, Yale researchers used a group of Cozmo robots to see how people reacted when one of the robots was pushed and thrown while the other robots witnessing the “abuse” looked sad.

IEEE Spectrum spoke with Marynel Vázquez, who leads the Interactive Machines Group at Yale, to answer a few questions. The article and interview can be read here https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence.

The paper “Prompting Prosocial Human Interventions in Response to Robot Mistreatment,” by Joe Connolly, Viola Mocz, Nicole Salomons, Joseph Valdez, Nathan Tsoi, Brian Scassellati, and Marynel Vázquez from Yale University, was presented at HRI 2020.