Robots Capable Of Developing Prejudice On Their Own
Study:
Robots Capable Of Developing Prejudice On Their Own
CARDIFF, Wales — Embracing stereotypes or
even forming a simple opinion about others may seem like a trait exclusive to
humans, but a recent study shows that robots can develop prejudice and
even discriminate in similar ways to people, too.
You might think that’s because they’re programmed that way, but
the research by computer science and psychology experts at Cardiff University
shows that robots and machines using artificial intelligence are capable of
generating prejudice on their own.
Joined by researchers from MIT, the Cardiff team explained this
discriminatory behavior by suggesting robots could identify, copy, and learn
this behavior from one another. Previous research has shown that computer
algorithms have exhibited prejudiced behaviors and attitudes, such as racism
and sexism, but researchers believe the algorithms learned it from public
records and other data created by humans. The Cardiff and MIT researchers
wanted to see if AI could evolve prejudicial groups on its own.
For the study, the researchers set up computer simulations of
how prejudiced individuals can form a group and interact with each other. They
created a game of give and take, in which each individual virtual agent makes a
decision whether or not to donate to another individual inside their own working
group or another group. The decisions were made based on each individual’s
reputation and their donating strategy, including their levels of prejudice
towards individuals in outside groups.
As the game progresses, a supercomputer performs thousands of
simulations, and each individual begins to learn new strategies by copying the
others within their group or the entire population.
“By running these simulations thousands and thousands of times
over, we begin to get an understanding of how prejudice evolves and the
conditions that promote or impede it,” explains co-author professor Roger
Whitaker, from Cardiff’s Crime and Security Research Institute and
the School of Computer Science and Informatics, in a release.
“Our simulations show that prejudice is a powerful force of
nature and through evolution, it can easily become incentivized in virtual
populations, to the detriment of wider connectivity with others. Protection
from prejudicial groups can inadvertently lead to individuals forming further
prejudicial groups, resulting in a fractured population. Such widespread
prejudice is hard to reverse.”
The study was published in the journal Scientific
Reports.
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