Robots can make you take greater risk, study finds

A new study showed that robots can coax people into taking greater risks in a simulated scenario.

The study was carried out by the researchers to explore if robots can affect risk-taking behaviours that could have clear ethical, practical, and policy implications.

Yaniv Hanoch, Associate Professor in Risk Management at the University of Southampton who led the study, explained: “We know that peer pressure can lead to higher risk-taking behaviour. With the ever-increasing scale of interaction between humans and technology, both online and physically, it is crucial that we understand more about whether machines can have a similar impact.”

The study, published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, involved 180 undergraduate students taking the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).

BART is a computer assessment that asks participants to press the space bar on a keyboard to inflate a balloon displayed on the screen.

With each press of the space bar, the balloon inflates slightly, and one penny is added to the player’s “temporary money bank”. The balloons can explode randomly, meaning the player loses any money they have won for that balloon and they have the option to “cash-in” before this happens and move on to the next balloon.

One-third of the participants took the test in a room on their own (the control group), one-third took the test alongside a robot that only provided them with the instructions but was silent the rest of the time. And, the final experimental group took the test with the robot providing instruction as well as speaking encouraging statements such as “why did you stop pumping?”

The results showed that the group who were encouraged by the robot took more risks, blowing up their balloons significantly more frequently than those in the other groups did. They also earned more money overall.

There was no significant difference in the behaviours of the students accompanied by the silent robot and those with no robot.

Hanoch said: “We saw participants in the control condition scale back their risk-taking behaviour following a balloon explosion, whereas those in the experimental condition continued to take as much risk as before. So, receiving direct encouragement from a risk-promoting robot seemed to override participants’ direct experiences and instincts.”

Hanoch concluded: “With the widespread of AI technology and its interactions with humans, this is an area that needs urgent attention from the research community.

“On the one hand, our results might raise alarms about the prospect of robots causing harm by increasing risky behaviour. On the other hand, our data points to the possibility of using robots and AI in preventive programmes, such as anti-smoking campaigns in schools, and with hard-to-reach populations, such as addicts.” Dr. Hanoch said.