A new study, conducted by the Human Interface Technology Lab in New Zealand, says humans are biased against black robots when forced to choose between black and white models.
The study found that people view human-resembling robots to have a race, and will treat them accordingly.
The “Robots and Racism” study, led by Dr. Christoph Bartneck, explored whether human bias for or against a particular color or race permeates technology. The study presented a shooter bias test to participants in which they were encouraged to determine the level of a threat based on a flash image of black people, white people, and robots. Participants were found to shoot black robots twice as likely as white robots.
New Zealand’s University of Canterbury published the study earlier in July.
Bartneck told The Next Web, “Of course, robots are not humans. Moreover, people barely had any opportunity to form prejudices against certain groups of robots — the power of the human mind to anthropomorphism is amazing.” – READ MORE