Another dis-informational headline. The press can be excused for this, but MIT should know better.
More realistically, 'when working with machines to do repetitive manual work, people prefer not to have to think so much.'
MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
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Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#12immediately thought of manna - http://www.amazon.com/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-ebo....
(FWIW, don't think it has aged too well)
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#13Robots also don't play favorites or office politics. If there is a more efficent/better way, it will do it. Even better when it is allowed to re-calculate with new parameters.
I'd invert that. You can't complain, whine, or plot social solutions in response to getting assigned tasks by a robot. There's a lower mental load in response to getting a task, since you don't have to worry about how your response to task assignment gets interpreted by your boss.
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#14Less Wrong told me this day would come. This is robot written propaganda! You've all heard of them writing articles. Now look at the consequences.
Please don't make novelty accounts on HN.
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#15Interacting with robots is often easier and simpler than interacting with people. Now that AI is on the cusp of being able to replace not just manual workers, but knowledge workers of all types, even those service jobs that have always seemed safe in the face of automation are in danger of dying out. Especially in light of evidence like this that people actually prefer robots to humans in many of those situations.
It's easier than interacting people who are stressed or under duress - which is usually the case with service jobs. In any case it seems that you didn't read the piece, since it says absolutely nothing about these situations.
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#16I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to find the actual paper (it's in the right corner under "Related", I blame banner blindness!)
Link for others like me [PDF]: http://interactive.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Gom...
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#17I found it interesting. It would be nice to know more about the subjects in this test. It might be that science students would be more at ease with autonomously behaving robots than the avarage factory worker, so I hope they didn't just ask students from the department to volunteer.
Your suspicion is confirmed. Most participants are within or closely connected to MIT. They seem to use rigorous math for hypothesis testing, but if the personality and other characteristics of the participants are not representative, their results may not apply to the general public.
I wonder why they did not cast their net wider, e.g. advertise in the Boston Globe, and statistically account for differing backgrounds, which is a pretty standard methodology in social science research.
From the actual paper: http://interactive.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Gom...
> The participants (14 men and 10 women) had an average age of 27 ± 7 years (minimum and maximum ages were 20 and 42) and were recruited via email and fliers distributed around a university campus.
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#18Robots also don't play favorites or office politics. If there is a more efficent/better way, it will do it. Even better when it is allowed to re-calculate with new parameters.
Obviously you haven't meet some of the robots I've worked with...
http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Servitude.mpg
http://donhopkins.com/home/RobotMovies/Empathy.mpg
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#19An example of a robot which gives people orders, in the sense of generating stimuli to which correct responses are required, is a video game, and those are shown to be addictive.
The next Tetris block that is about to fall is essentially a robot's order: when you're done with that one, place this one somewhere!
Re: MIT study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders
#20Robots also don't play favorites or office politics. If there is a more efficent/better way, it will do it. Even better when it is allowed to re-calculate with new parameters.
The issue with this is the efficient way is not always the better way.
If you keep assigning the same menial and crappy task to a worker because they get it done quick, yay efficiency! Except if you're asking the same worker to clean the bathrooms three times a day every day, it's not going to take long before he goes "fuck this, I'm going to work somewhere else!"
The robot will assign the next most efficient person, who's going to be right on the train out too and so will everyone who sees it coming. So you'll either end up with people gaming the system and slacking, or you'll end up with an empty business.
People might like the idea of robots because they don't play favourites or office politics. However, I'm willing to bet that people are going to hate that same robot really quick because it doesn't play favourites or office politics.
If you know you can always count on Joe to cover a shift, if he comes and asks you a human for a day off and you know it'll leave you short staffed for a day. Would you? Yes, because you know the 99 other days you're going to end up short staffed you won't because you've got Joe. You know if you say no that you'll be short staffed those other 99 days because Joe's going to make sure he's busy laying on the couch eating cheerios watching jeopardy because you pissed him off.
The worst managers I've personally faced are either the ones that blame everyone else, or the ones who are there to "do a job and not make friends". The latter is the robot.