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Attributing Blame to Robots: I. The Influence of Robot Autonomy
Caleb Furlough1, Thomas Stokes1, Douglas J Gillan1
12167706798 North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA.
Human Factors
|October 16, 2019
Summary
Humans blame autonomous robots more than non-autonomous ones when teams fail. Robot autonomy influences blame attribution, impacting workplace acceptance.
Area of Science:
- Human-robot interaction
- Cognitive psychology
- Robotics
Background:
- Human perception of robotic team members is crucial for successful human-robot cooperation.
- Task failures in human-robot teams highlight the importance of understanding blame attribution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how humans assign blame to humans, non-autonomous robots, autonomous robots, or environmental factors following task failures.
- To understand the role of robot autonomy in human blame attribution.
Main Methods:
- Participants read scenarios detailing human-robot team task failures.
- Scenarios were designed to emphasize human, robot, or environmental factors in the failure.
- Participants allocated blame among human, robot, and environmental factors after each scenario.
Main Results:
- Humans generally attributed more blame to humans, followed by robots, then environmental factors.
- Non-autonomous robots received significantly less blame, similar to environmental factors.
- Autonomous robots received blame comparable to that assigned to humans.
Conclusions:
- Humans employ a blame hierarchy, viewing robots as partial social actors.
- The degree of a robot's autonomy influences how much humans perceive it as a social actor.
- Increased robot autonomy leads to greater blame attribution in work tasks.
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