wildcat2030:

Knowmads, Infocology of the future

Growing up with the Internet gives today’s children a very unique view on the way the world works — one that is vastly different from that of older generations. These kids, the ‘digital natives,” are raised with modern technology deeply…

@machinestarts (Chris Baraniuk) commented, “I am not a fan of this research. Children 30 years ago would basically have said the same thing”.

Which suggests that before we jump to this conclusion we need to prove that “robots are human” is not an effect of either:

• the research design
• or the cognitive development of children surveyed (i.e. kids start off not understanding self/other, so it seems likely they’ll be pretty shaky on human/non-human until a certain age)

To examine only the first point:

The question posed was, “What would happen if robots were a part of your everyday life — at school and beyond?” Note that it’s a question about robots - which is a word in everyday English indicating a humanoid form, a general category including the advanced (and hard to distinguish from human “android”), but not hybrid and indistinguishable in the way of the “cyborg”. It’s a question framed to elicit commonalities - if the kids didn’t humanise robots, that would be the unexpected finding.

Second, Survey design 101: if your question’s about robots, to assume the answer tells you about attitudes to technology (a much wider category) is unjustified extrapolation.

Thirdly it doesn’t appear to test null hypotheses, two being (i) how children would imagine they’d react to cats in their everyday lives - would they humanise them too? I’d expect so; and (ii) how adults would imagine interacting with robots in their everyday lives - which likewise I would expect would come out. The idea that adults perceive robots as “separate to humanness” appears to be a cultural assumption of the researchers, nothing more.

But echt, press releases publicity lalala.

More information about the research process here.

(via stoweboyd)