People Feel Weird About Touching Robot Butts, Researchers Find (techcrunch.com) 162
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.
It could always be worse... (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think it will be that bad, so long as they don't go all Chobits on us...
Re: It could always be worse... (Score:1)
PANTSUUU~~~
Re: It could always be worse... (Score:2)
Award worthy (Score:4, Funny)
I smell an Ignobel prize in their future.
Re:Award worthy (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Award worthy (Score:2)
I rather smell robort pr0n appearing soon on internet...
And does that smell like burning wire insulation?
Re:Award worthy (Score:2)
Re:Award worthy (Score:1)
Re:Award worthy (Score:2)
Re:Award worthy (Score:3)
You beat me to that comment. And I think robot porn is on the internet for quite a while already...
Re:Award worthy (Score:2)
Is there an online submission form?
Re:Award worthy (Score:1)
If it's found tax-payer money was spent for this research, all h8ll's gonna break loose.
"Those wasteful [liberals/conservatives] are spending YOUR hard-earned tax dollars paying people to get jiggy with robots!"
Re:Award worthy (Score:2)
No surprise here (Score:1, Funny)
It's no surprise that a bunch of male engineers and Slashdot users would get aroused by touching a male robot's ass and junk. It's a good thing a female robot wasn't used in the experiment. The male engineers and Slashdot users would have run away in terror when asked to touch a female robot's private parts.
Re:No surprise here (Score:2)
And in the opposite direction... (Score:2)
It's a good thing a female robot wasn't used in the experiment. The male engineers and Slashdot users would have run away in terror when asked to touch a female robot's private parts.
...all the while, all the femi-trolls of the internet would have run the opposite direction to start some outraged circus...
If men are aroused by robots... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's bad news for women.
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:2)
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:2)
That's bad news for women.
And if women are aroused by robots, that's really bad news for men...
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:1)
You mean like vibrators, right? Because I'm pretty sure those didn't spell doom for mankind. Of either gender.
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:2)
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:2)
Yeah, divorce court can be shitty sometimes, and that's worth talking about. However, prenups already exist and would prevent that abuse, in most cases.
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:1, Insightful)
What options do men have these days? Women can retroactively decide that the consensual sex they had with you was actually rape and get you kicked out of school or worse. Avoiding women and indulging in porn and sexbots seems to be a reasonable way out for men.
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:1)
Re:If men are aroused by robots... (Score:2)
Why it is bad? As far as I understand male sexual desire is way higher than female for very obvious biological reasons...so as long as we have 1:1 ratio and enforced monogamy all men will be sexually frustrated all the time....so finding something else that can help in satisfying male desire is a good thing TM....also good for women...so I for one welcome our female sexy robot overlords...
Not surprising (Score:5, 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.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
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.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
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.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
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.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
Re:Not surprising (Score:1)
Isn't the "uncanny valley" mostly pseudoscience?
No it's an observed phenomenon. Also known as a "fact". However it is not a theory or behavioral model.
Using gravity as an analogy, it's the equivalent of "dropping a feather and a bowling ball on Earth results in the feather falling more slowly".
From that you might incorrectly conclude that acceleration due to Earth's gravity depends on the dropped object's mass, or correctly conclude that the feather's low destiny and high surface area are causing interactions with the air that result in it descending more slowly.
Similarly, the "uncanny valley" is the observation that people in general react more positively towards things that seem more human except within a certain range where they find them "creepy" for being "too human" but not quite "actually human". But not in itself an explanation of why, or a system for predicting what's going to be "too close".
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
I thought the uncanny valley was a broad enough concept that it could be applied to anything that tried for a sense of realism but had a hard-to-express unrealism that made it creepy.
Like some mannequins seem to have it, which would seem to apply to things like the Real Doll in particular since it tries for a close realism. I think I've even read it applied to something like a person with an amputated digit or some other physical change.
Isn't the uncanny valley part of what makes horror films about dolls or ventriloquist dummies work? Their apparent realism subverted by an artificiality? A child's doll dressed in realistic clothes and with realistic hair but the blank expression despite realistic features?
I would imagine demonstrating it scientifically would be hard to do because it's so subjective. Maybe if you showed people a range of images and had them judge how realistic they looked and then applied some objective measure of realism to the images you might find a correlation, but there would be a lot of individual variation.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
I would imagine demonstrating it scientifically would be hard to do because it's so subjective.
Isaac Newton's Flaming Laser Sword saves the day again!
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
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?).
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
I'll bet they have something like data going back to the 1960s when you consider that "Carousel of Progress" dates to the 1964 World's Fair and the large number of "audio animatronics" in other attractions.
IMHO, "Carousel.." does a pretty good job with realism vs. unrealism considering how old it is, and they seemed to incrementally increase realism without really adding much of an uncanny effect with MK's "Hall of Presidents" and even more with the American pavilion at Epcot.
In some cases, though, they have the benefit of audience distance for their animatronics, uncanny cues may be lost beyond some distance.
Maybe because it isn't a shiny metal one (Score:4, Informative)
I remember hearing a robot saying somewhere that having a but with those attributes was a turn on.
Re:Maybe because it isn't a shiny metal one (Score:1)
Relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
(no really, the "movie" is good. It just happens to also be a music video.)
Re:Maybe because it isn't a shiny metal one (Score:4, Funny)
Not every robot needs to be android (Score:1)
Re: Not every robot needs to be android (Score:1)
R2D2 is well designed to service C3P0.
Re:Not every robot needs to be android (Score:2)
Why does every machine we interact with have to emulate human appearance?
What planet are you living on? The vast majority of machines (and robots) on Earth look nothing like humans and make no attempt at emulating human appearance.
Re:Not every robot needs to be android (Score:2)
Why does every machine we interact with have to emulate human appearance?
I'm trying to think of one machine I've ever interacted with that had a human appearance. Nope, can't think of any.
proof that radiation causes mutation (Score:2)
Re:Not every robot needs to be android (Score:2)
Unasked question (Score:2)
What if it was that Scarlett Johannson robot doing the asking, instead of this white plasticky thing?
Not an authoritative source, however ... (Score:4, Funny)
I suspect other robots [questionablecontent.net] don't feel all that great about it [questionablecontent.net], either.
Robots have butts? (Score:1)
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:5, 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?
Re:Robots have butts? (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.
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:1)
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?
But why would your robot need a bum? We have a robot at work, it's called an elevator. The designers saw no need to put a bum on it, so I can't see why any robot would, unless it's entire purpose was to evoke a response about a robot having a bum.
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:3)
Sex dolls, Real Dolls, and various other things tell me people are willing believe that far more than you realize.
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:2)
If you believe sex dolls talk to you, I strongly advise you to get professional help from a psychiatrist.
Much preferably, one whose chemistry is carbon-based.
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:2)
I take it you have rejected the Breakfast of Champions hypothesis that we are machines made out of meat?
Re:Robots have butts? (Score:2)
Soon it'll go the other way (Score:2)
A study can measure people's reactions today (robots that look human, will elicit patterns from the human world), but if such robots become commonplace, the meaning and context will shift.
People might take their familiarity with robots and let that influence their feelings about people. That people should behave in colder, more logical ways, and that you shouldn't expect empathy from others, merely accurate understanding, etc. Similar to how the machine was seen as de-humanising, that we'd become more "machine-like", so too with the mind and feelings and the body, we may start to adapt to behaving with people more like we'll adapt to behave with machines.
On the other had, arguably the machine never dehumanised us, it just gave us more freedom, and so all these concerns about human-machine interactions are silly. Once you learn it is a robot and it has no innate feeling of "private parts", we'll all know the difference and it'll be totally obvious. Like nobody freaks out when a car goes past at speed.
If a robot asked me to touch its butt... (Score:5, Interesting)
If a robot asked me to touch its butt, I'd immediately start looking for the hidden camera crew.
HAL (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?"
Re:HAL (Score:2)
"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?"
Dave: I'm sorry, HAL. I'm afraid I cannot do that....
Re:HAL [since you went THERE....] (Score:1)
Which eventually leads to a long psychedelic trip through e-goatse...
Re:HAL (Score:2)
Open the pod bay doors, HAL... (bow chicka bow)
Also (Score:5, Funny)
Also : People Feel Weird About Researchers Studying Touching Robot Butts, Researchers Find
Re:Also (Score:2)
Disappointed:
- In slashdot editing
- Researchers studying useless things
Hell yeah! (Score:2)
This is obvious. For me touching a butt isn't that it is a robot butt - but that somebody might be watching me and think that I'm doing something inappropriate.
Think about what happened when Andrew McCarthy got caught bopping the love of his life in the movie Mannequin. Like, dude, get a life.
Sitting? (Score:2)
By "low accessibility", do they mean that normally you don't touch someone's butt, or that the robot was in a position that made it harder to touch it's but?
They should repeat the test with the robot standing.
Re:Sitting? (Score:2)
Grope my shiny metal ass (Score:2)
n/c
Re:Grope my shiny metal ass (Score:2)
* TRIGERRED *
[clutches pearls]
Re:Grope my shiny metal ass (Score:2)
[clutches pearls]
That sounds painful....
But is it smooth (Score:2)
Can I volunteer for the control group? (Score:2)
Grabbing ladies butts? :-)
The Uncanny Valley? (Score:2)
Nobody mentioned Bender?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Bender reference (Score:1)
Missing data (Score:2)
Was there a control group in a private hotel room?
This leads to (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This leads to (Score:1)
Re:This leads to (Score:4, Funny)
To paraphrase Sir Mix-a-Lot: I like bot butts, and I cannot lie.
Not Surprising (Score:2)
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Making something taboo or "special" makes it more attractive and exciting. This applies to just about everything.
Imagine just how much the /. tone would improve (Score:2)
I LIKE ROBOT AND I CANNOT LIE (Score:1)
I LIKE ROBOT BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE
You other engineers can't deny
When a good robot walks in with
A good ARM
And a big SSD in your face
You get sprung!
Wanna get out your notepads
'Cause you noticed that A2D
converter was dense.
Deep in the servo I'm reading,
I'm hooked and I can't stop
Speeding, through Baby
I wanna get that android,
And Instagram that picture,
My teachers try to train me
But that gearset you've got
Makes me so crazy!
Slightly unfair (Score:2)
Hello user... (Score:2)
Needs to be considered? (Score:3)
If it's form is designed by Masamune Shirow (Score:2)
Re:If it's form is designed by Masamune Shirow (Score:2)
It's the future - I don't care about flying cars but where are the policewomen with no pants on motorbikes that look like they belong in the space program?
Arousing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Arousing (Score:2)
It's important to note that by 'arousal', the researchers do not mean sexual arousal.
Indeed, I was about to offer the same note. I presume that the quote from the article (and the paper's title) were deliberately offered without context in order to sound more titillating than they really are.
"Arousal" in this context can also represent nervousness, discomfort, fear,, and reluctance. The sensor is measuring skin conductance (galvanic skin response), which just indicates that there is increased blood flow and/or perspiration.
Bite my shiny metal ass (Score:2)
Seriously, bite it! Stupid frail human teeth.
Re:Bite my shiny metal ass (Score:2)
There are machines built for fucking. I've seen them on the internet. Not sure if I'd call them robots though, since they don't seem to have any AI capabilities.
Interesting voice... (Score:4, Insightful)
Obligatory futurama (Score:2)
Disgust is very important survival tool. (Score:2)
Feeling disgust is important survival tool, it helped people avoid infections, develop better sanitation, etc.
This is truly Questionable Content! (Score:3)
conspicuous empty spaces in the photo album (Score:2)
Damn, I should have been a scientist.
Every job that I've ever worked, every job except "research scientist" that I've ever even heard of, has always affected the world in some small way, and it always mattered to someone, anyone if I didn't bother to do it.
But instead I guess you can just program a robot to talk like a child molester and write down how people react to it, and that's a real job that someone, somewhere, will pay you for? And you can tell your family about it at Thanksgiving? And maybe they'll even be proud?
I'm such a chump.
NO.- .. Not that (Score:1)
Re:priapism envy (Score:2)
Re:priapism envy (Score:2)
If I get an erection lasting longer than 4 hours, I'm 58, the last person I'm calling is a doctor. I'm calling a hooker, the lady next door, maybe even a pizza delivery company - not a doctor.
Re:Cognitive Hypnotherapy London in Barbican and E (Score:2)
Re:Cognitive Hypnotherapy London in Barbican and E (Score:2)
We're talking butts, not bollocks. Specifically robot.
Maybe #51851741 can help