Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots
Emerging evidence suggests that children may think of robots—and artificial intelligence, more generally—as having moral standing. In this paper, we trace the developmental trajectory of this belief. Over three developmental studies (combined N = 415) and one adult study (N = 156), we compared parti...
| Autor principal: | |
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| Formato: | Journal article |
| Idioma: | English |
| Publicado em: |
Elsevier
2024
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| _version_ | 1826315079813955584 |
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| author | Reinecke, M |
| author_facet | Reinecke, M |
| author_sort | Reinecke, M |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Emerging evidence suggests that children may think of robots—and artificial intelligence, more generally—as having moral standing. In this paper, we trace the developmental trajectory of this belief. Over three developmental studies (combined N = 415) and one adult study (N = 156), we compared participants’ judgments (Experiments 1 - 3) and donation choices (Experiment 4) towards a human boy, a humanoid robot, and control targets. We observed that, on the whole, children endorsed robots as having moral standing and mental life. With age, however, they tended to deny experiential mental life to robots, which aligned with diminished ascription of moral standing. Older children’s judgments more closely mirrored those of adult participants, who overwhelmingly denied these attributes to robots. This sheds new light on children's moral cognitive development and their relationship to emerging technologies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:17:36Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:e33f4ac5-2d7f-43bf-81db-5d041a3b998f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:17:36Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:e33f4ac5-2d7f-43bf-81db-5d041a3b998f2024-10-25T08:20:36ZDevelopmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robotsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e33f4ac5-2d7f-43bf-81db-5d041a3b998fEnglishSymplectic ElementsElsevier2024Reinecke, MEmerging evidence suggests that children may think of robots—and artificial intelligence, more generally—as having moral standing. In this paper, we trace the developmental trajectory of this belief. Over three developmental studies (combined N = 415) and one adult study (N = 156), we compared participants’ judgments (Experiments 1 - 3) and donation choices (Experiment 4) towards a human boy, a humanoid robot, and control targets. We observed that, on the whole, children endorsed robots as having moral standing and mental life. With age, however, they tended to deny experiential mental life to robots, which aligned with diminished ascription of moral standing. Older children’s judgments more closely mirrored those of adult participants, who overwhelmingly denied these attributes to robots. This sheds new light on children's moral cognitive development and their relationship to emerging technologies. |
| spellingShingle | Reinecke, M Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title | Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title_full | Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title_fullStr | Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title_full_unstemmed | Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title_short | Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| title_sort | developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT reineckem developmentalchangesintheperceivedmoralstandingofrobots AT developmentalchangesintheperceivedmoralstandingofrobots AT developmentalchangesintheperceivedmoralstandingofrobots |