ACADEMIC RESEARCH • 學術研究 2023 UMAGAZINE 28 • 澳大新語 57 Have you ever come across videos or photos of ‘hero’ robots tackling hazardous tasks such as fighting a wildfire or sanitising hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic? Whereas robots were once limited to industrial automation, we now see them increasingly deployed in service domains like disaster response to improve human safety and well-being. It seems that WALL-E, the endearing cleaning robot from the 2008 Pixar movie, has found its real-world counterparts. The Unexpected Effect of Robotic Progress This robot progress prompts an important question: If robots now help humans with such tasks, does that make humans more prosocial or less prosocial? Our recent research sheds important light on this issue. The research, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, reveals that while robots doing dangerous jobs are seen as efficient helpers, they do not inspire people to step up and help others. In other words, our research indicates that people’s willingness to engage in prosocial behaviours decreased significantly when they watched robots (as opposed to human workers) assist in disaster scenarios. In short, ‘hero’ robots inadvertently diminish our human qualities. For instance, in one experiment, we presented participants with narratives derived from actual news reports depicting the efforts of people or robots to disinfect hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some narratives highlighted human workers, while others highlighted robots. We measured how likely participants would be to help other vulnerable people in a subsequent task. The study revealed that participants displayed a reduced inclination to extend a lending hand to others after reading about robots helping rather than humans helping. High Efficiency With Diminished Inspiration The implications of these findings are profound. It appears that the presence of ‘heroic’ robots, while significantly enhancing efficiency, fails to inspire empathy and prosociality among observers. This raises questions about the impact of robot involvement on our innate desire to help others in times of crisis. Our further exploration into this matter revealed two primary reasons why ‘heroic’
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