编者按：机器人不仅在改变人们的身体和行为，也在改变我们的想法。人们越来越容易在情感上接受机器人，但对机器人的情感是否有两面性？对机器人的暴力是否会影响人们的社会行为？又是否会改变社会的面貌？本文编译自DAVID A.GRAHAM在 the Atlantic上发表的“What Interacting With Robots Might Reveal About Human Nature”。

Robot panic seems to move in cycles, as new innovations in technology drive fear about machines that will take over our jobs, our lives, and our society—only to collapse as it becomes clear just how far away such omnipotent robots are. Today’s robots can barely walk effectively, much less conquer civilization.

机器人恐惧症似乎出现了周期性的发展，尤其是技术创新使人们担心机器人将抢走我们的工作、生活和社会。当清楚地认识到这种全能机器人离我们尚远时，这种恐惧才会消失。今天的机器人几乎难以高效行走，更不要说征服人类文明。

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons to be nervous. The more pressing problem today is not what robots can do our bodies and livelihoods, but what they will do to our brains.

然而，这不意味着这种紧张是毫无道理的。如今，更为紧迫的问题不是机器人会改变我们的身体和生活，而是它们将改变我们的思想。

“The problem is not that if we teach robots to kick they’ll kick our ass,” Kate Darling, an MIT robot ethicist, said Thursday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic. “We have to figure out what happens to us if we kick the robots.”

“问题不在于一旦我们教会机器人如何踢，它们就有可能踢人类的屁股”，麻省理工大学的机器人伦理学家Kate Darling这周四在阿斯彭研究所和《大西洋月刊》共同举办的阿斯彭思想节上这样说到，“我们需要弄明白的是，如果我们踢了机器人将会发生什么。”

That’s not just a metaphor. Two years ago, Boston Dynamics released a videoshowing employees kicking a dog-like robot named Spot. The idea was to show that the machine could regain its balance when knocked askew. But that wasn’t the message many viewers took. Instead, they were horrified by what resembled animal cruelty. PETA even weighed in, saying that “PETA deals with actual animal abuse every day, so we won’t lose sleep over this incident,” but adding that “most reasonable people find even the idea of such violence inappropriate.”

这不仅仅是一个隐喻。两年前，波士顿动力公司发布了一个视频，视频上员工们正在踢一个名叫Spot的犬型机器人。这个视频的本意，是为了说明机器被撞歪时能够恢复平衡，但这不是许多观众们得到的信息。相反，他们对这种类似于虐待动物的行为感到震惊。善待动物组织PETA甚至表示，j2直播，“PETA每天都在处理实际的动物虐待事件，所以我们不会忽视这样的事情，”它补充道，“有理性的人会认为这种暴力思维就已经是不恰当的了。”

The Spot incident, along with the outpouring of grief for the “Hitchbot”—a friendly android that asked people to carry it around the world, but met an untimely demise in Philadelphia—show the strange ways humans seem to associate with robots. Darling reeled off a series of other ways: People name their Roombas, and feel pity for it when it gets stuck under furniture. They are reluctant to touch the “private areas” of robots, even only vaguely humanoid ones. Robots have been shown to be more effective in helping weight loss than traditional methods, because of the social interaction involved.

除了Spot的事件外，atv，还有“Hitchbot”的事件。“Hitchbot”是一个友善的便携式机器人，却在费城遇到了不测之灾。Spot的事件和人们对Hitchbot事件所表达的悲痛，体现出人们似乎与机器人以奇怪的方式相关联。Darling介绍了其它的关联方式：人们为他们的自动吸尘器机器人取名字，而且当它卡在家具下时还会感到同情。他们拒绝触碰机器人的“私人领域”，即使只是模糊的仿人状。由于涉及到社会交往，机器人还被认为比传统方式更有助于减肥。

People are more forgiving of robots’ flaws when they are given human names, and a Japanese manufacturer has its robots “stretch” with human workers to encourage the employees to think of the machines as colleagues rather than tools. Even when robots don’t have human features, people develop affection toward them. This phenomenon has manifested in soldiers bonding with bomb-dismantling robots that are neither anthropomorphic nor autonomous: The soldiers take care of them and repair them as though they were pets.

如果给机器人取了人名，人们就更容易原谅它的缺陷。一个日本制造商让机器人参与到员工中，鼓励员工将机器人看作同事而非工具。即使机器人没有人的特征，人们也会对他们产生好感。这些现象已经表现在拥有拆弹机器人的军人身上。这些机器人既不仿人也不自主，士兵们却像对待宠物一样照顾和维修它们。