People in Japan Respect Robots and AI More Than Those in the West Societies

Picture an automated delivery vehicle racing to complete a grocery drop-off as you rush to meet friends for a long-anticipated dinner. You both reach a busy intersection simultaneously. Do you pause to let it navigate the turn, or do you expect it to yield, even if traffic rules suggest it should go first?

Navigating a World with Self-Driving Cars

“As self-driving technology advances, these daily interactions will shape how we coexist with intelligent machines,” says Dr. Jurgis Karpus from LMU’s Chair of Philosophy of Mind. He notes that fully autonomous vehicles mark a shift from simply using AI tools like Google Translate or ChatGPT to directly engaging with them. The key distinction? In heavy traffic, our priorities won’t always align with those of self-driving cars, yet we’ll still need to navigate these shared spaces—even if we’re not the ones using them.

A recent study in Scientific Reports by researchers from LMU Munich and Waseda University in Tokyo found that people are much more likely to exploit cooperative AI agents than equally cooperative humans. “After all, cutting off a robot in traffic doesn’t hurt its feelings,” says lead author Dr. Jurgis Karpus.

Humans vs. Machines

Using behavioral economics techniques, the team designed game theory experiments where Japanese and American participants had to choose between cooperation or self-interest. The findings showed that when their counterpart was a machine rather than a human, participants were significantly more inclined to act selfishly.

However, the study also found that this tendency to exploit cooperative machines is not universal. People in the U.S. and Europe take advantage of robots far more often than those in Japan.

The researchers attribute this difference to guilt: Westerners tend to feel remorse when exploiting another human but not when taking advantage of a machine. In contrast, people in Japan experience guilt similarly, whether mistreating a person or a cooperative robot.

These cultural differences may influence the future of automation. “If people in Japan respect robots as much as humans, fully autonomous taxis could become widespread in Tokyo long before they do in Berlin, London, or New York,” Karpus explains.

Read the original article on: TechXPlore

Read more: Robotic Rehab and Synced Zaps Restore Movement After Spinal Injuries