Study Shows Babies Think Friendly Robots Are Sentient

seanonymous writes "A study from University of Washington claims that babies think robots are human, so long as the robots are friendly. No word on what evil robots are thought to be. From the article: 'At 18 months old, babies have begun to make conscious delineations between sentient beings and inanimate objects. But as robots get more and more advanced, those decisions may become harder to make. What causes a baby to decide a robot is more than bits of metal? As it turns out, it takes more than humanoid looks — babies rely on social interaction to make that call.'"

Comments

Re:Are babies sentient?

[kurokame]

The qualification to be considered sentient is that it appears to have human-like intelligence to a human.

Re:Babies think everything that moves is sentient

[smooth wombat]

NOVA (from PBS) had a three-part show called "The Human Spark" which was hosted by Alan Alda. In the shows, they examined what makes us human compared to the rest of the animal kingdom and how it relates to our brain.

During the show, they showed how babies (roughly 3 - 9 months old) could discern good from bad by watching colored blocks and how they behaved towards one another or how puppets played nice with one another.

One thing that came out during the show and made me say, "Hmmm" was the fact that if I were to point at something, without saying anything, you would look in the direction I was pointing.

Oddly enough, so do dogs. If you point at something, a dog will look. Here's the interesting part: wolves don't do this. Apparently, through the ages, as we've bred dogs to their current form, we have inadvertently bred this trait into them whereas wolves, ostensibly the originator of modern dogs, lack this trait.

To see the programs, visit http://video.pbs.org/program/1356407145/

or here:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/tag/alan-alda/

In the second link, the second excerpt called Social Networks and the Spark, has the video of a baby choosing an inanimate toys who appears friendly/cooperative compared to one that isn't.

Sentient =/= Sapient

[AP31R0N]

Robots that respond to their environment are essentially sentient. Dogs certainly are sentient. Neither are SAPIENT.

Sci-fi has misused the work sentient when they meant to say sapient.

That does NOT mean that sentient means self aware, it means the sci-fi writers and everyone else who says sentient when they mean sapient are WRONG.

Yes, even if the dictionary agrees with them.