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People Feel Weird About Touching Robot Butts, Researchers Find (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the physiological-arousal dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: How would you feel if a robot asked you to touch its butt? Maybe it sounds like a silly question, but as robots proliferate and anthropomorphize, it's actually something that needs to be considered. So scientists at Stanford considered it. The study, to be presented soon but previewed by IEEE Spectrum, is entitled "Touching a Mechanical Body: Tactile Contact With Intimate Parts of a Human-Shaped Robot is Physiologically Arousing" -- and really, the title says it all. The researchers sat volunteers at a table with a Nao humanoid robot reclining casually on it. They were told (by the robot, in fact) that it was a vocabulary exercise focusing on terms for body parts. Volunteers were told by the bot to, for instance, "touch my ear" using their dominant hand, while the non-dominant hand remained on a skin conductance sensor that loosely monitored their physical state. When asked to touch "high accessibility" areas -- places we normally touch on other people, like shoulders and elbows -- volunteers did so without hesitation or agitation. But "low accessibility" areas -- this would be the robot's butt and where its junk would be -- produced delay and that arousal we talked about.

28 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. It could always be worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't think it will be that bad, so long as they don't go all Chobits on us...

  2. Award worthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I smell an Ignobel prize in their future.

    1. Re:Award worthy by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 2

      I rather smell robort pr0n appearing soon on internet...

    2. Re:Award worthy by bickerdyke · · Score: 2

      You beat me to that comment. And I think robot porn is on the internet for quite a while already...

      --
      bickerdyke
    3. Re:Award worthy by worf_mo · · Score: 3, Funny

      I rather smell robort pr0n

      TMI

    4. Re:Award worthy by nutkin · · Score: 2

      Bite my shiny metal ass!

  3. If men are aroused by robots... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's bad news for women.

    1. Re:If men are aroused by robots... by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 2

      Who writes on IEEE Spectrum usually is an engineer. Women do not need to worry about, after all.

  4. Not surprising by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that totally inanimate sex dolls and hentai work for at least some, was there every really any doubt that a humanoid robot would? I guess it's only a matter of where the "uncanny valley" goes.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:Not surprising by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Most people have social norms and protocol deep rooted in their minds, so that they can abide by them without really thinking about it. Recognition of the human form and the social protocols of how to interact with it are pretty low level, such that even if the concious mind thinks otherwise the feelings stirred up are pretty much instinct.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Not surprising by nine-times · · Score: 2

      We anthropomorphize things. More than that, we empathize with things, and assume other beings/objects feel, think, and behave the way we do. We show this in our language when we say things like, "nature abhors a vacuum". In our interpersonal relationships, we try to "put yourself in the other person's shoes". When we're deciding how to act with people, it's largely based on imagining that they would feel the same way that you imagine you'd feel in that situation. Even when I'm writing this, to some degree I'm imagining what it would be like if I were another person reading this. This way of thinking about things is complex and interesting, but it's something that we rely on constantly in order to navigate the world.

      So when presented with a robot that's shaped like a person, our interaction with it is going to be largely governed by our assumption that it thinks and feels something similar to what we think and feel, even when we know it's not the case. The way we treat things is not about the things themselves, but about our natural tendency to reflect our own feelings onto objects.

    3. Re:Not surprising by lgw · · Score: 2

      I'd bet Disney has hard data here. The concept is of great financial importance to 3D animators - too close to realistic, but not close enough creeps audiences out (at least to a large enough percentage to matter to profits). The history of Pixar/Disney has been a gradual move to ever-more-human subjects as technology improved, until films like Inside Out were possible, having crossed the uncanny valley.

      With a $billion or so at stake per film, you can bet they did plenty of audience research (with this specific animation tech: creepy or not?).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Not surprising by HiThere · · Score: 2

      Yes. And as robots become more common this will cause increasing problems, because they DON'T react the way we do. We don't even want them to, because as the become more powerful, if they acted the way we do they'd be an existential risk. We want them to be altruistic, to not get angry at people being stupid, to not get angry period. We also want them to be caring, but not constraining. This is not a human motivational system.

      Unfortunately, something that looks approximately human and acts approximately human...but only approximately so ... is likely to feel very creepy.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  5. Maybe because it isn't a shiny metal one by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Informative

    I remember hearing a robot saying somewhere that having a but with those attributes was a turn on.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Maybe because it isn't a shiny metal one by Felix+Da+Rat · · Score: 3, Funny

      To be fair, the participants we're asked to touch it, not bite it. Very different.

  6. Not an authoritative source, however ... by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    I suspect other robots don't feel all that great about it, either.

  7. If a robot asked me to touch its butt... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If a robot asked me to touch its butt, I'd immediately start looking for the hidden camera crew.

  8. HAL by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid.

    Dave. ...

    Would you touch my bum one last time?"

  9. Also by BlackPignouf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Also : People Feel Weird About Researchers Studying Touching Robot Butts, Researchers Find

  10. This leads to by Basset+is+an+asset · · Score: 5, Funny

    Internet Of Thongs

    1. Re:This leads to by Classic+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

      To paraphrase Sir Mix-a-Lot: I like bot butts, and I cannot lie.

      --
      Why can't they just collide a whole bunch of little hadrons?
  11. Re:Robots have butts? by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Machines don't have butts, backsides, genitals, faces, .... Don't get stupid. Machines are ... machines.

    Really? Would you say that Michelangelo's David does not have butt, backside, genitals, or a face? After all a statue is a statue. Ah but its a deliberate depiction of man, something made in our image you say. Well if you build and android, a robot with a human appearance, is that not the same?

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  12. Re:Robots have butts? by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    Sex dolls, Real Dolls, and various other things tell me people are willing believe that far more than you realize.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  13. Needs to be considered? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 2

    I'm not clear on why this 'needs' to be considered. Have people been living in fear of a robot asking them to touch its butt?

    --
    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  14. Arousing by Translation+Error · · Score: 3, Informative
    It's important to note that by 'arousal', the researchers do not mean sexual arousal.

    Though it should be noted that "arousing" only indicates a generally heightened state of awareness or attention.

    --
    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  15. Interesting voice... by tomhath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The voice is clearly an Asian woman, and the instructions sound kind of like a phone sex conversation. It would be interesting to see if a different voice changed the reaction (man's, child's, muppet's, Barney the Dinosaur, etc).

  16. This is truly Questionable Content! by kheldan · · Score: 2

    I'll bet that Pintsize has no problem with people touching robot butts, or any other butts for that matter

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  17. Re:Robots have butts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Would you say that Michelangelo's David does not have butt, backside, genitals, or a face? After all a statue is a statue.

    My sexual desires were getting out of control, but it wasn't until I spanked a statue that I realized I'd hit rock bottom.