[PAPER] Robocalypse? Yes, Please! The Role of Robot Autonomy in the Development of Ambivalent Attitudes Towards Robots

[Julia Stapels]

Hello everyone, 

Our new paper " Robocalypse? Yes, Please! The Role of Robot Autonomy in the Development of Ambivalent Attitudes Towards Robots" by Friederike Eyssel and myself is now available online at the International Journal of Social Robotics. You can access it here for free: 

https://rdcu.be/ct1M0

In the paper we investigated the influence of autonomy on robot-related attitudes on a quantitative level and employed qualitative measures to gain insight into evaluation contents causing ambivalent attitudes towards robots. 

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. 

Cheers, 

Julia

[Larsen, Jeff T]

Hi Julia –

 

Thanks for sharing and congratulations on this paper!

 

I really admire the mixed-method (quantitative + qualitative approach). I studied ambivalence for a decade before I bothered to people to put their feelings into their own words. (This despite the fact that Phil Tetlock chided me for relying entirely on quantitative approaches in my dissertation defense.)

 

I haven’t gone through the paper carefully yet, but in your abstract you mention that:

“We experimentally manipulated robot autonomy through text vignettes and assessed objective ambivalence (i.e., the amount of reported conflicting thoughts and feelings) and subjective ambivalence (i.e., self-reported experienced conflict) towards the robot ‘VIVA’ using qualitative and quantitative measures. Autonomy did not impact objective ambivalence. However, subjective ambivalence was higher towards the robot high versus low in autonomy.”

 

Can you share more details about whether and how the manipulation affected the number of positive and negative entries people made? This might help shed light on why it didn’t affect levels of objective ambivalence.

 

Also, I wonder whether the disconnect between objective and subjective ambivalence has something to do with people feeling more conflicted about the autonomous robots but not quite being able to put their finger on why. In the event, the effect would translate into greater subjective ambivalence without affecting the number of positive and negative entries people made.

 

Another possibility is that your closed-ended measure of subjective ambivalence is more sensitive than your measure of objective ambivalence, which is derived from open-ended measures.

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

-- Jeff

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