I Need Your Advice... Human Perceptions of Robot Moral Advising Behaviors
This addresses the design of autonomous moral agents for human-robot interaction, but it is incremental as it builds on existing work in robot ethics and perception.
The study investigated how robots should communicate moral advice when norms differ between robots and humans, finding that both humans and robots are judged more positively when advising for the common good over individual life.
Due to their unique persuasive power, language-capable robots must be able to both act in line with human moral norms and clearly and appropriately communicate those norms. These requirements are complicated by the possibility that humans may ascribe blame differently to humans and robots. In this work, we explore how robots should communicate in moral advising scenarios, in which the norms they are expected to follow (in a moral dilemma scenario) may be different from those their advisees are expected to follow. Our results suggest that, in fact, both humans and robots are judged more positively when they provide the advice that favors the common good over an individual's life. These results raise critical new questions regarding people's moral responses to robots and the design of autonomous moral agents.