Wrong outside, wrong inside: A social functionalist approach to the uncanny feeling

The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities: A Literature Review

“…Views of other contributors – Bryson, Gunkel, Coeckelbergh, Danaher, Darling and Richardson – are summarized Obodiac ( 2012 ) Robots are considered within a broader discussion of citizenship. Various theories of citizenship are employed, especially the Greek concept of nomos Olivera-La Rosa ( 2018 ) This article examines “the phenomenology of the uncanny feeling,” that people experience when encountering “human-like stimuli” such as humanoid robots. Relevant studies that have examined this are summarized and analyzed through a “social functionalist account.” Olivera-La Rosa hypothesizes that the uncanny feeling “constrains the ‘moral circle.’” Pagallo ( 2010 ) Pagallo notes several legal precedents that could apply to the rights and obligations of artificial entities: “robots as killers,” “robots as fridges,” “robots as slaves,” and “robots as pets.” Pagallo also draws on Floridi to argue that robots are “moral ‘patients ‘ or receivers that deserve respect and protection” Pagallo ( 2011 ) Pagallo notes several legal precedents that could apply to the rights and obligations of artificial entities: “robots as kids,” “robots as pets,” “robots as employees,” and “robots as slaves.” Like Floridi, Pagallo argues that “ ‘good’ or ‘evil’ can conveniently be represented as anything that enhances or damages the informational complexity of the whole” and comments that robots “are informational objects par excellence” Petersen ( 2007 ) Petersen outlines a philosophical argument in defense of “designing robots so that they want to serve (more or less particular) human ends”, but does not defend robot slavery, which is understood to mean “to be forced into work contrary to your will” Petersen ( 2012 ) After outlining some previous arguments on the ethics of robot servitude, Petersen notes their belief that, “it is possible to create robots of ethical significance” — “artificial people” that “could have full ethical standing like our own.” Nevertheless, as in their 2007 article, Petersen argues that designing robots so that “comply with our intentions for them to be our dedicated servants” could still be “ethical” Piazza et al ( 2014 ) The authors argue that “harmfulness… is an equally if not more important determinant of moral standing” than moral “patiency” or “agency.” The authors’ studies are of low relevance, but they summarize relevant research, such as one paper where “participants rated a range of [13 different] natural and unnatural entities,” including a robot, “on attributes pertaining to what they labeled as ‘experience’… and ‘agency.’” These factors were found to be correlated Powers ( 2013 ) ...…”

Swiping right: face perception in the age of Tinder

“…Therefore, the importance of moral character in person perception may also reflect more symbolic considerations related with the “essence” of the person considered2. For instance, moral behaviors (Uhlmann et al., 2015), affective displays (Szczurek et al., 2012), attitudes (Bocian et al., 2018) and the perception of uncanny faces (Olivera-La Rosa, 2018) have been suggested to reveal moral character. Indeed, morality is so central to person perception that it makes sense to postulate an automatic pathway of moral inference.…”

“…According to the authors, this finding suggests that the UF may function as an avoidance response towards those targets evaluated as emotionally unpredictable (i.e., signaling that a person's intentions are unpredictable and potentially dangerous): “For survival purposes, the human default interpretation in such circumstances has possibly evolved to be one of ‘erring on the side of caution’ and preparedness for the possibility that we are in the presence of a being with psychopathic-like traits and thus potential danger” (Tinwell et al., 2013, p. 1623). Accordingly, it has been suggested that the UF functions as an emotional signal that something is “not right” with the perceived moral character of a target, and that said target therefore needs to be avoided (Olivera-La Rosa, 2018). Recently, these hypotheses were tested using an implicit associations paradigm: across five Single-Target Implicit Association Tests the authors found support only for a slight association of the UF with moral disgust (relative to fear), but not evidence of an implicit link between the UF and cognitions of psychopathy; Villacampa et al.…”

In masks we trust: explicit and implicit reactions to masked faces vary by political orientation

“…Nevertheless, a theoretical case can be made for the relevance of masks to evaluations of the wearers’ trustworthiness. Visibility of facial expressions is important for processing information about feelings and intentions [ 12 ]: obscuring these could thus lead to appraisals of ambiguity, uncanniness, and potential social danger, which might decrease trust in the wearer [ 13 , 14 ]. Such appraisals are likely automatic, since when viewing unfamiliar faces, we make automatic judgements of trustworthiness or untrustworthiness in literally a fraction of a second [ 12 , 15 ].…”

“…Theories of the “behavioral immune system” suggest we have evolved to avoid potentially contagious agents or substances [ 20 ]. This extends to face perception, with intuitive judgements of disease perhaps motivating the negative social evaluations that tend to be made of ugly or uncanny faces [ 13 , 21 , 22 ]. During a pandemic in which there is a high risk of infection from strangers, the desired level of social closeness with a stranger could easily be affected by the use of facial information to make intuitive judgments about their possible state of health.…”