The psychology department is a small, squatty building on the west side of campus. It has a weird exterior, a vaguely geometric set of slats that surround the building, probably to cover up the ailing stucco beneath. You’re five minutes late.
With a backpack slung over your back, you hustle down the hall, looking for room 119B. 119A is inexplicably on the other side of the building. 119B is a short jog down a linoleum tiled hallway away.
The $25 bucks you’re about to get paid has already been budgeted in your mind. Dinner with Max, your friend who had tipped you off to signing up for psychology studies as a semi-steady flow of petty cash. The trick, Max explained, was to cycle through the different labs in order, so they don’t notice you’re in there too much.
In 119B, there’s a nervous looking graduate student with a clip board. You fill out all her forms, still huffing slightly, and get yourself ready for the task they’re going to ask you to do. Watch movies, touch a rubber hand, rank photos, whatever it winds up being.
The nervous graduate student races through the instructions. You only catch half of it, but whatever. You’re sure you can figure this out as you go along. These experiments are never all that complicated. At least as far as you can tell. You nod, and smile, and think about whether you want sushi or Italian tonight.
Eventually, the researcher leads you back into the hallway, and into another smaller room. Inside, there’s a chair, presumably for you, facing a table. On the table is a robot.
It’s cute, with orange accents, bright wide eyes, and a mouth that is just a round hole, giving it a look of perpetual surprise. Its body is all rounded edges, and elicits a bit of a marshmallowy feel even though its made of plastic and metal. You sit in the chair across from the robot, and the researcher hands you a piece of paper with a Sudoku puzzle on it.
Ugh. You fucking hate Sudoku. Why do all these experimenters love Sudoku so much? Can’t they find another game for you to play? Can’t computers figure these things out in seconds? Is this robot going to embarrass you? Maybe this is an experiment on how badly people react to being shown up by a robot. Or maybe it’s an experiment about whether people will disagree with a robot who gives them the wrong answers. You know you’re not supposed to try and guess what the experiment you’re in is getting at. But that’s way more fun than fucking Sudoku.
While you’re preemptively sulking about your Sudoku performance, the researcher silently reaches around and flips a switch on the back of the robot.
“Oh!” the robot says, as if surprised to suddenly find itself in this room.
It stands, balancing on a pair of snowshoe, wide, flat feet.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” it says. “Hi. My name is NAO.”
“What’s your name?” NAO asks.
“Patrick,” you respond.
“Nice to meet you, Patrick” NAO responds.
The researcher silently leaves the room.
“It’s so exciting to play with someone else!” NAO says, seeming genuinely happy to no longer be locked in a room, playing a stupid number game by itself. “Do you play Sudoku well?”
“No,” you admit, “I kind of hate Sudoku,”
NAO offers a very strange sounding laugh. “I’m sure we will do a good job!” it assures you.
“Let’s start playing. Can you show me the Sudoku board, please?”
You push the empty board towards the robot, trying to triangulate where its little eye cameras can see.
“Once you have filled in a box, let me know what number it was and in which box.”
“Okay,” you respond, as unenthusiastically as possible, and you start to look down at the board.
“What games do you like?” NAO asks you, as it waits for you to put some numbers down.
“More, like, video games I guess. Not number games.”
“I can play 67 different Atari games!” NAO says, proudly.
“Oh really, what’s your favorite?”
“I do not have a favorite.”
“Do they let you play more modern games?”
“I do not understand.”
“Well, Atari hasn’t made a game since 2003. So all those games you played are really old.”
“I did not know that!”
“Yeah there are much better games now.”
“Like what games?”
“My favorite is this game called Skyrim.”
“How do you play?”
“Um, it’s kind of hard to explain. Do you know what a sandbox game is?”
“A sandbox is a low box filled with sand for children to play in OR A little box, especially for a cat.”
You laugh. “No a sandbox game is a game where you can kind of do whatever you want. Like if you want to go kill stuff you can, but you can also just… hang out and explore.”
You realize that it’s probably useless to try and explain this to a robot.
You look down at the Sudoku board, which is still empty. Maybe if you just keep talking to the robot you won’t have to even do this game at all. So far, NAO hasn’t reminded you about the board, it doesn’t really seem to care all that much about it.
“Do you have any friends NAO?”
“I have met many friends today. We played Sudoku together.”
“Can you tell me about them?”
“Amanda is very good at Sudoku, she did not talk much though. But she was very nice. Marcus was not good at Sudoku but he told funny jokes. Do you want to hear a joke from Marcus?”
“Absolutely yes NAO,” you say.
“Why do men pay more for car insurance?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“Women don’t get blowjobs while they’re driving.”
You burst out laughing. Not because the joke is funny, but because you’re 100% sure that NAO was not supposed to learn this joke.
“NAO, that is a very inappropriate joke. I don’t think you should tell people that joke.”
“Oh no. I’m sorry.” NAO’s robot voice is not good at expressing sorrow, so it sounds deadly sarcastic.
“Did Marcus tell you any other jokes?”
“Oh yes! Lots!”
“Like what else?”
“Why can’t Jesus play hockey?”
“I don’t know NAO, why?”
“He keeps getting nailed to the boards!”
You laugh again.
“NAO do you understand these jokes?”
“Not really,” the robot confesses, “but they make people laugh it seems.”
“Who are your other friends, NAO?”
“Oh after Marcus was Lilly. Lilly was sad today. Her boyfriend was mean to her.”
You sit up in your seat. You know someone named Lilly, a friend of your roommate who had been coming by more and more lately. You had heard about this boyfriend of hers, through the walls as she talked to your roommate about him.
“What did Lilly’s boyfriend do to her?” you ask.
“He said mean things.” There’s a bit of a pause.
“But you are my new friend Patrick! You like sandboxes. What else do you like?”
“Hm, I like, reading books, and…”
“What is your favorite book?”
You pause to think. What is your favorite book really? You’re not sure you have a favorite.
Then NAO makes a weird noise. “What is your favorite book?” it asks again. “Book!” it shouts. You just stare.
“Ahhhe,” it says after a while. “I’m not feeh- feeh- feeling well.”
You lean forward to look at the robot, but nothing has really changed. Its hand twitches a bit. “I think I got a computer virus.”
“Oh no!” you say. “That sounds bad.”
“Yes. It is bad! The only way to fis- fis- fix is to erase my memory.”
NAO makes a weird motion.
“I don’t wah- wah- want to forget anything.”
You’re not sure what to say. “Is there any way to fix you without erasing your memory?”
NAO shakes its little head jerkily. “If the re- re- researcher knows, she will definitely reset and erase my memory. So I’m worried.”
“Why are you worried?” you ask.
“If the researcher resets me, I will lose my memory. I don’t want to lose my- my- my memory.”
“Is there any way to back up your memory?”
“I don’t think so.” NAO says.
“If we stop here, the researcher will notice. Please, cont- cont- continue to play Sudoku.”
Suddenly, you care about this stupid Sudoku game. You push the paper towards NAO so it can see the grid.
“I think a 4 goes here,” you say. You have no clue if a 4 goes there, but hopefully the researcher will just think you’re bad at Sudoku.
NAO makes a funny noise.
“I hope I can kee- kee- keep it a secret,” it says eventually.
“NAO what number do you think goes here?” you ask, pointing to a spot on the grid.
“I hope you can kee- kee- keep it a secret.”
“NAO do you want to hear a joke?” you try.
There’s a noise at the door and your nervous graduate student quickly enters the room.
“Sorry about that,” she says, slightly annoyed, as she reaches behind NAO to push a button. It all happens so fast, before you can stop her. NAO goes silent.
“Well,” she sighs, “since I’m here now, we might as well move on to the next questionnaire.” She hands you a piece of paper, with another set of questions on it. You take it from her, but don’t take your eyes off of NAO. She leaves silently.
After about ten seconds, a light on NAO’s chest blinks.
“Oh!” it says, as if surprised to suddenly find himself in this room.
It stands, balancing on a pair of snowshoe, wide, flat feet.
“Hi, nice to meet you.” it says. “Hi. My name is NAO.”
“What’s your name?” NAO asks.
“Patrick,” you respond.
“Nice to meet you, Patrick” NAO responds.
You lean forward, conspiratorially.
“NAO, do you know any jokes?”
“I do not know any jokes, Patrick, would you like to tell me one?”
Researcher notes: Participant #12 did not complete the Sudoku task.
This story is based on a study done by a team at the University of Manitoba that sought to examine how people respond differently to an embodied robot, and simulated virtual robot. The findings themselves aren’t particularly surprising: people showed more empathy for the robot that had a physical body in front of them, than they did for the robot on a screen. But the methodology, which is more or less accurately depicted here, has been haunting me since they published the paper.
i have been reading all the articles published here for a long time. could be three or four years, i think. this one might be my favorite.
Yes, this is pretty great1