Why do I feel empathetic towards a robot?
Earlier I saw a post on imgur about how the mars rover has now been carrying out it's mission for almost 15 years, but recently a large dust storm has resulted in NASA being unable to contact the robot at all. Whilst reading the post I felt a sudden sadness for this poor little robot that has been on its own for such a long time and now it can't even communicate with home. I caught myself and wondered why I was feeling such sadness for a electronic device on the other side of solar system.
One possible explanation I had was that most humans all share a common disliking of the feeling of loneliness, and feel sad for those experiencing that feeling, regardless of whether that thing is human or not. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like a lot of other people also hate to see others in a position of loneliness as I think at some point in everyones life you experience some form of loneliness and therefore know how horrible it is to be in that situation. There's a really good quote by Carl Sagan that sums this up rather nicely: “In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
Do any of you fellow users occasionally feel bad for robots or have done so in the past, and why? I'm sure I can't be the only one but I'd like to hear other peoples take on the subject.
For whatever reason, we humans seem to humanize many things - Robots, cars, animals, etc. Perhaps it's just how we feel most comfortable relating to things in the world.
And of course, XKCD has a comic about it. It's about the Spirit rover and not the Opportunity rover, but the sentiment is still valid. https://xkcd.com/695/
Man I thought I was done with feelings for the day, turns out I was wrong. That last panel, christ alive my heart.
Oh no, please!
This makes me happy again.
Huh, it made me sad. Weird how things go.
Edit: Forgot to say why... It's like they brought home to him, but almost, leaving him on the only place around him not home. In fact they memorialize, purposely making it so he never gets to go home. And it is so close...
Did you also read the alt text by hovering over the image? All the comics have some alt text.
Missed that, makes it even more depressing honestly. The fact it'll just sit there until it runs out of power, just accepting its fate. Rather sad.
If it makes you feel better, it'll be there waiting for us when we get to Mars, and with some effort, we could probably reactivate it.
Copyright this story quickly before Pixar make a film about it, because I would watch the hell out of that.
:-)
Don't forget, there are at least 3 rovers on Mars, and 3 lunar rovers (from the Apollo program, think moon dune buggies), so plenty of historic flown hardware to refurbish when our capabilities are better.
We can reboot him, we have the technology. In a few years.
I have that same feeling when people kick the Boston Dynamics' robots. I intellectually know it's just a machine, and they are built to mimic human/animal movements. But kicking them to try and knock them over just seems...cruel?
Exactly the same, I actually wince a bit when they kick them. I know they are just doing it to test the balance but some part of me is saying "stop that, leave him alone!" When one of them fell over on a banana peel (which was hilarious to be fair) my gut reaction was "oh man I hope he's okay!"
I would feel for the bots if i wasn't just more amazed and afraid of the engineering. Boston Dynamics literally inspired one of the black mirror episodes for a reason.
I think I might have felt an intense sadness for Voyager 1. A lot of these documentaries do humanize the robots which makes you project your feelings on to them. Curiosity's story intrigued me as a child and very much wanted to meet it. It is a lot like a traveller come home kind of dream i had when I imagined meeting some of these robots. You imagine yourself as the robot going in extremely dangerous places. I guess that is what happens when you watch too many NOVA episodes.
I can see how humanising the robots would make it far more likely for you to empathise with them, however this imgur post was literally just listing the cold hard facts, I think it was I myself who humanised it subconsciously.
I think that could be another explanation, if you imagine yourself in the robots place you suddenly realise how lonely it must be. Maybe the fact I feel lonely for the Rover is simply me feeling loneliness as I imagine myself in that situation.
I never even thought of that, I think the fact that the robot is somewhere we couldn't even comprehend being does definitely add to the loneliness. Imagine how lonely the crew of Apollo 11 must've felt knowing just how far away they were when the landed on the moon, although I can assume the fact they were walking on the frigging moon probably took precedence in their minds.
The more I think about, the more I agree with the fact that it's only because the Rover is on Mars and not on Earth. Imagining an abandoned car in the middle of a desert somewhere doesn't quite invoke the same feeling I felt when reading about the Rover.
It could also be your immediate perspective in life. If you are lonely you often see loneliness in others. Perhaps you see loneliness in objects. Have you ever watched the anime Tonari no Seki-Kun? (I apologize if you haven't) but even oin that show you were able to identify the struggles of office supplies! It is a bit weird that the simply listing of facts did make you feel that way but like i said before this could be your immediate perspective.
Unfortunately I have not had the chance to see it but I'll definitely give it a look! I think you're correct, I didn't expect everyone to say "me too", I guess it just depends on your perspective as you said.
I think because as humans our natural empathetic response is to feel empathy for other creatures. We feel emotion for humans of course. We are born to feel empathy, it's a natural evolutionary trait. It could be for several reasons, if I see my friend walk over a hot red burning thing and I see they're now in pain, it will make me think twice about doing the same, It also makes it easier for me to understand their pain and perhaps help them.
It's the same reason we find babies cute. We have developed to have a natural desire to protect and look after them. It is within our genetics to feel empathy for these things.
A study was done which showed participants videos of a human, a robot, and an inanimate object being treated with affection or violence. They performed an MRI scan and it turns out the same empathetic emotion part of the brain fires off when all 3 videos are shown, essentially people were feeling happy for the object the same way they felt happy towards the human. (There was, however, a difference for the violent video where people were more empathetic towards the human).
Essentially it is hardwired into your brain to feel emotion towards them. Just my personal idea is that the rover has similar(-ish) features to a dog, it has legs in the form of wheels and a face in the form of a character. It would be very easy to internally personify it and view it like an animal. It might seem daft but kind of like how in our brains, Wall-E has enough personality and familiar human characteristics that we can almost relate to him.
Technical stuff aside, I totally agree, it feels very lifelike, kind of like a puppy, or a henry hoover. It feels very sad to hear that it's gone. RIP my little mars mate :(
That's rather interesting that our brains react in the same way for all three subjects being treated with affection. It makes sense I guess that in a violent situation another human will take precedence as our brains put a humans condition as high priority over a robots or inanimate objects.
I agree with your dog idea (I think that's why they called it Rover in the first place), robots that are very similar in shape and "limbs" to animals we are already comfortable with are more likely to be relatable than say a solid black box full of electronic components. Also would explain why right from the beginning you attach yourself to Wall-E, although the noises and eye movements he makes definitely help.
Keep faith, Rover isn't gone he just can't communicate with Earth due to the storm at the moment.