Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.
Cognition. 2025 Jan;254:105958. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105958. Epub 2024 Oct 2.
How do ordinary people evaluate robots that make morally significant decisions? Previous work has found both equal and different evaluations, and different ones in either direction. In 13 studies (N = 7670), we asked people to evaluate humans and robots that make decisions in norm conflicts (variants of the classic trolley dilemma). We examined several conditions that may influence whether moral evaluations of human and robot agents are the same or different: the type of moral judgment (norms vs. blame); the structure of the dilemma (side effect vs. means-end); salience of particular information (victim, outcome); culture (Japan vs. US); and encouraged empathy. Norms for humans and robots are broadly similar, but blame judgments show a robust asymmetry under one condition: Humans are blamed less than robots specifically for inaction decisions-here, refraining from sacrificing one person for the good of many. This asymmetry may emerge because people appreciate that the human faces an impossible decision and deserves mitigated blame for inaction; when evaluating a robot, such appreciation appears to be lacking. However, our evidence for this explanation is mixed. We discuss alternative explanations and offer methodological guidance for future work into people's moral judgment of robots and humans.
普通人如何评价做出具有重大道德意义的决策的机器人？之前的研究发现，人们对人类和机器人的评价既相同也不同，而且在不同的方向上也不同。在 13 项研究中（N=7670），我们要求人们对在规范冲突中做出决策的人类和机器人（经典电车困境的变体）进行评价。我们考察了可能影响人类和机器人代理的道德评价是否相同或不同的几种情况：道德判断的类型（规范与责备）；困境的结构（副作用与手段-目的）；特定信息的突出性（受害者、结果）；文化（日本与美国）；以及鼓励同理心。人类和机器人的规范大致相似，但在一种情况下，责备判断表现出明显的不对称：人类因不作为决策而受到的责备比机器人少——具体来说，就是为了多数人的利益而不牺牲一个人。这种不对称可能是因为人们认为人类面临着一个不可能的决定，并且应该因不作为而减轻责备；而在评价机器人时，这种赞赏似乎并不存在。然而，我们对这种解释的证据是混杂的。我们讨论了其他解释，并为未来对人类和机器人的道德判断进行研究提供了方法学指导。
