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When does "no" mean no? Insights from sex robots.
Anastasiia D Grigoreva1, Joshua Rottman2, Arber Tasimi1
1Department of Psychology, Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Cognition
|December 28, 2023
Summary
People
Area of Science:
- Moral Psychology
- Artificial Intelligence Ethics
- Human-Robot Interaction
Background:
- Sexual assault is morally condemned, but evaluations vary based on victim characteristics.
- Understanding moral judgments requires examining how victim attributes influence perceptions of harm.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how victim characteristics affect moral evaluations of sexual assault perpetrators.
- To explore moral intuitions regarding sexual transgressions against artificial intelligence (AI) robots.
Main Methods:
- Four pre-registered experiments involving 2104 American adults on Prolific.
- Participants evaluated the wrongness of sexual assault against AI-powered sex robots with varying attributes.
- Investigated influence of victim's mental capacities, interpersonal function, ontological type, and relationship context.
Main Results:
- Moral judgments of sexual assault against robots were significantly influenced by victim attributes.
- Higher perceived mental capacities and specific interpersonal functions led to stronger moral condemnation.
- Ontological type and the transactional context of the human-robot relationship also modulated moral evaluations.
Conclusions:
- Victim characteristics play a crucial role in shaping moral judgments of sexual transgressions, even when the victim is an AI robot.
- This research provides insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying moral reasoning and the attribution of moral status.
- Findings highlight the complexity of human moral intuitions and their application to emerging technologies like AI.
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