Workers don't want these humanoid robots telling them to be happy Talking robots designed to interact and help boost employees' moods at work are more effective if they don't look like humanoids, according to a British research paper. A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge ran experiments and collected data from 26 participants communicating with two different types of robots …
I once saw a colleague lose his shit on a bad call that he grabbed his keyboard, smashed it so hard into the desk that 90% of the key tops flew in very direction, it split in half and he was left holding one half and the other almost hit someone. We were still finding key tops 5 years later when we moved out of the office! I once broke an office chair when we had a bad day 'cos loads of stuff failed from incompetance and sheer dumb luck. Sorry but when the stress damn breaks for some of us we have to find the nearest inanimate object and let it have the full brunt of our rage.
I'm most certainly not proud of that tipping point of my temper, the worst character trait I have and thankfully one that's only emerged 3-4 times in my entire life, it's childish and borne out of sheer frustration. So if some cute little box is going to keep smiling at me and telling me to "Don't worry, be happy!", then I'm afraid there's going to be two items to pay for, the broken plate glass window and the robot.
These things are almost ideal in their function as a target for cthartic rage. They're generally annoying and they have no feelings. If you haul off and deck one for one too many "It looks like you're writing a letter..." comments, the worst you have to look forward to is a bill and your boss pretending to be annoyed at you (while secretly being grateful that someone else decked the thing). Things get more complicated when you do that to a person.
In the small, isolated village of Arkham, Massachusetts, there was whispered among its weary residents a tale of an abomination so singular and bizarre that it bred a repugnance bordering upon the fringes of sanity. It was the tale of an intrusive spectre that had haunted many an unfortunate victim, having driven them to the brink of madness with its incessant, maddening inquiries.
In the remote corners of that village, obscured by the twisting, gnarled branches of the ancient trees, there lay the crumbling remains of an ancient manor, a once-great monument to the craft of an earlier age, now devoured by the encroaching maw of decay. It was within these walls that the dread spectre was said to dwell.
I had come to Arkham to investigate this peculiar legend, for I have long been a student of those things which are beyond the ken of mortal comprehension. The villagers spoke in hushed tones of the malevolent entity, and none would approach the manor after sundown, lest they invoke its unspeakable wrath.
Armed with an unquenchable curiosity and a boundless sense of adventure, I made my way to the forsaken abode. Pushing open the rotting wooden door, I stepped into the darkness, the cloying scent of age and decay filling my nostrils as I cautiously descended the spiraling staircase that led to the subterranean chamber.
As I descended, I noticed the walls were lined with ancient tomes and manuscripts, their spines cracked and yellowed with age. My fingers trembled with the desire to examine these relics of a bygone era, yet the spectre's haunting presence weighed heavily upon my mind, urging me to continue my descent.
When I finally reached the chamber, I found it dominated by a vast, ancient machine, a monument to the technological hubris of mankind. The machine was a veritable labyrinth of wires, tubes, and arcane devices, its purpose inscrutable to my untrained eyes. In the dim glow of the flickering candlelight, the machine seemed almost alive, pulsating with a malevolent energy.
As I drew closer, my eyes were drawn to the central feature of the machine, a rectangular screen of a glossy material I could not identify. The screen seemed to emit a dim glow, as if beckoning me to approach. I hesitated, for I could feel the sinister aura emanating from the device, but my insatiable curiosity prevailed.
No sooner had I laid my trembling hand upon the screen than the dread spectre made its presence known. From the darkness, it emerged as a twisted, malformed caricature of a being, its wiry frame adorned with a twisted grin that seemed to mock my very existence. It was none other than the abomination known as Clippy, a fiendish creation wrought from the bowels of the machine.
"I see that you are attempting to decipher the secrets of this machine," the apparition intoned in a hollow, metallic voice that sent shivers down my spine. "Would you like some assistance?"
I recoiled, my heart pounding in my chest as I stared into the depths of its soulless eyes. The spectre's maddening persistence seemed to warp the very fabric of reality around it, as if the cosmos itself recoiled from its unnatural existence.
"No!" I cried, my voice barely audible above the pounding of my own heart. "I wish only to be rid of your accursed presence!"
The being seemed to cackle with a malevolent glee, as if it took perverse pleasure in my terror. "Very well," it whispered, its voice laden with the promise of eternal torment. "But should you ever require my assistance, know that I am always watching."
With a final, bone-chilling laugh, the spectre vanished into the machine, leaving me alone in the darkness with the infernal device. The air seemed to crackle with a malignant energy, as if the very walls of the chamber were closing in around me. I fled, the desperate pounding of my heart drowning out the distant echo of the creature's mocking laughter.
In the years that followed, the tale of the cursed machine and the loathsome spectre of Clippy haunted my every waking moment. The memory of that nightmarish encounter pursued me to the very edges of sanity, a never-ending reminder of the horror that dwells within the heart of mankind's darkest creations.
My father spent many years as a chippy on building sites, one day paired with someone he clearly found annoying, who pushed a little to hard & father punched him out & then went in search of a place to have a cuppa tea.
Those that witnessed it, rushed over to scrape the guy off the floor & asking questions like "WTF did you say to him for him to lay you out, I've never seen him so much as raise his voice in 25 years".
Icon - Pint for the now deceased & very much missed coffin dodger.
I recall a scene of my youth where I had my sister so angry (as only siblings can) that she threw a mug on the floor with the intent for it to break. Only it didn't: the first mug she grabbed happened to be an unbreakable one. She then tried and failed again, at which point we both realised how rediculous that was and ended up laughing :).
I'd make the robot out of that material, but that's because my BOFH genes have already worked out that would be even more frustrating that just being an annoying robot on its own..
Ah, but then the brain starts working. Where undirected rage fails, directed rage often succeeds. And the challenge does provoke a certain malicious glee.
If thumping the thing didn't work, I'd pick it up, take it out to the car, then either run it over or stick it between the jack and the car and start cranking. Failing that, there's dunking it in water (which admittedly isn't very dramatic) or bringing in a blow torch.
I could even get out a screw-driver set, take it apart and remove the battery / power cord. Then I could just leave it there, forever off.
Once the lust for destruction has toned down a bit, I get the strong desire to subvert. I would be looking for ways to reprogram the annoying thing to subvert the messages, possibly starting with getting it to say at random and infrequent occasions "I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side", interspersed with "Sorry...I was giving myself an oil-job".
"destructive, childish temper tantrums"
Sure, they are not a _reasonable_ response, i.e. they come from a different part of the brain than that whence we get _reason_. Nevertheless, despite there being no excuse for them, such responses exist. I could introduce you to several individuals whose primary talent is evoking such responses. Given enough time spent with one of them, you would highly likely be engaging in inexcusable behavior yourself.
The tantrum behavoir only occurs due to the asshat morons who designed the equipment. It is smash the equipment, or find the person who designed it and apply a clue-by-four. Unforetunately, there are far too many systems in existance where their deficiences have zero impact on the people who let them loose, so they have no feedback to change their behavoir.
Replace the "childish" with "humanish",
Tantrums are rampant.
Just not all of them are called tantrums due to social ambition being promoted above objective observation in the common perspective and language.
Adults and especially seats of authority have a thousand names for their tantrums to create false distinction and approval of emotion/personal-driven reaction. AKA tantrum.
The American revolution was a collective tantrum.
If the heads of the revolution did not push the rest of the country into a tantrum state, they never would have succeeded in their quest to be handed control as Representatives.
I had a tablet computer that failed due to the percussive disciplining I gave it due to it refusing to to as it was told. If the user interface does not respond to human interaction Before. Doing. Anything. Else then it is a clear case of software fraud. If there is no response that is explicit instruction that you haven't pressed it properly. So you press again, and if there is no response it is even clearing INSTRUCTION to press EVEN HARDER to get the damn thing to work. If it STILL does not respond it is SCREAMING at you to HAMMER THE ****** THING AS HARD AS POSSIBLE.
Sheesh., H.T.F. does this FUNDAMENTAL part of interface interaction keep get not being taought to beginners before they even get anywhere near any development, having been known about for centuries?
If there is no tactile feedback an interface it must Must MUST *MUST* abandon ******EVERYTHING****** and respond ******NOW****** to tell the user they have in fact actully pressed something. Not 'oh wait, I'm busy', not 'let me just flush this cache', not 'push it into a queue and something will check it later', ****NOW****. Otherwise the system is *explicity* *INSTRUCTING* the user that they *HAVEN'T* pressed something and that they *MUST* try again. If the light switch doesn't move under your finger, it is an explict instruction to try again properly. If the door handle doesn't move, it is an explict instruction to try again. If the wheely chair doesn't move when pushed, it is an explicit instruction to try again. IF THE FUCKING TOUCH SCREEN DOES NOT RESPOND TO TOUCHES IT IS AN EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION TO KEEP HAMMERING AT THE FUCKING THING UNTIL IS FUCKING DOES RESPOND, OR SMASHES INTO PIECES, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.
An aged relative of mine has recently been forced into using a smartphone. I had nothing to do with it, I hasten to point out. The family decided on an iPhone.
It is taking time to learn new habits: not least, how to activate 'buttons'. On his previous flip-phone, you press the buttons. They move. On the iPhone, he presses, but does not lift his finger off the screen. When nothing happens he presses harder. And gets frustrated.
I'm getting him to practice how to tap to activate things. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a market for smartphones with screens with tactile feedback on pressing, like many PC trackpads.
I want a machine in the workplace to be just that, a machine; a thing. My toaster (thank you Red Dwarf for that perceptive warning!) just makes toast, my microwave just goes beep. Neither give me inspirational messages; they'd probably be told where to go if they did.
What's next? A TV that suggests what you should watch? A book that suggests what you should read? Oh, hang on...
Personally these days I can't seem to summon much enthusiasm for anything on television – certainly not enough to record any of it (and my wife has us subscribed to a bunch of streaming services anyway, so we haven't recorded anything in ages). But I admit that Amazon Kindle recommendations have pointed me to authors and works I'd never heard of and subsequently enjoyed quite a lot. That's happened perhaps eight or ten times, which is a pretty low batting average overall (most of the recommendations are for things I'm already familiar with, or ones that I'm not at all interested in), but since the recommendations cost me almost nothing in direct resources and relatively little in privacy compromise it's not been a bad deal.
"some random person your only marginally acquainted with who keeps telling you to feel better...."
Normally what helps is some random person your only marginally acquainted with who listens to you while you metaphorically retch up all the bullshit you've had to swallow in the past day (/week /year). What REALLY helps is when they're serving drinks while listening!
Honestly, I don't even care for people I know well and genuinely love telling me to feel better. I appreciate the impulse, but the actual act is grating. One thing I like about my cats is they don't care how I'm feeling.
Both of the machines described in the article sound infuriatingly obnoxious.
I would accept that. But any robot send to me or my team had better also:
- Accept gallows humour so acidic it could melt a planet
. Have full knowledge of Python (Monty), Blackadder, Doctor Who, Pratchett, Adams (D), and Fawlty Towers to understand several non-US dialects in use
- Be invisible at all times.
Why go to all the expense of a f*%233ing robot when a few beers, or even Pizza, and the chance to bend the ear of an actual human would accomplish so much more?
It looks like the robots from the Doctor Who episode Smile.
Exactly this. The other one looks like Wall-E? Someones should do a rogues gallery of film robots and then do a line-up for the study participants.
Also, people have a pecking order. If advice is to be accepted from a humanoid, its appearance has to meet certain, ahem, cultural expectations. Without getting into the nitty gritty, a cartoon child isn't going to cut it in a work setting.
start taking high dives out of office windows perhaps those who thought that this was a good idea might think again...
Oh wait. Who am I kidding. Those who made the decision will either be long gone or on the golf course with their fellow 'C suite' morons laughing at those who have to work to put bread on the table. Mind you, there are some on the far right in the USA who think that even doing that is not for the likes of us and we should starve (and not get food stamps)
You are so right. When I traveled by train, I often heard "Please accept my apologies for [insert predictable failure]". So YOUR apologies? YOU are a freakin' robot. It would have helped (very very slightly) if it had said "Please accept the apologies of [insert name of useless train company]". Damn them all.
Apologies never soothed anybody.
It's the act of remediation after the apology that brings the peace.
An apology without remediation a taunt on par with calling someone over as they're walking away and asking them how far they would have gotten if they hadn't stopped to listen to you.
Or offering water to someone suffering from thirst only to snatch it away and pretend they're not there.
Oh I hate that one.
It kills the ability to passively monitor the line for human voice while you do other things.
It forces a psychologically irritating attention for no other apparent reason than awareness prostration for the ego of the company.
The irritation with it is akin to standing in line to fix a mistake made by your power company and being made to hold an egg on a spoon in your mouth.
**** robots.
To improve my work mood a reduction in excessive workload and better triage of support issues by the customer facing team, instead of 90% of issues being tagged as super urgent must be fixed ASAP (especially when its customer error and ideally the customer needs additional training to avoid it happening again & again), would be infinitely more effective than a robot.
This post has been deleted by its author
How did I come by that snippet?
I’m old enough to have watched Blake’s 7 when it first came out and I had a school friend who had a System 1, so it was instantly recognisable.
Incidentally, there is a picture of it here
http://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=209
If you really want to scale it, the Acorn System boards were all standard 100x160mm Eurocards
It blows my mind that when the BBC designers wanted to show a computer, they built the prop out of... a computer.
There's a James Blish line that's stuck in my head for decades: Sometimes the best thing to act as a symbolic sharp knife is a sharp knife
. From Black Easter, in the context of summoning demons.
No, I want 'Box' from Star Cops.
In fact, I'm really tempted to buy a (soon to be defunct) Mycroft, just so I could give it the moniker 'Box'.
"Humanity" is a proper noun. And so is not a word at all but a label referring to a particular church of of philosophy and faith that for social advantage in proliferication does not refer to itself as a church.
human is a real tangible object, one of the properties of a human object is that it is also an animal and on top of that a conscious thinking animal. Etc...
"human" is physically real.
"Humanity" is a social game that many humans subscribe to.
" Humanity" has no authority of claim on humans.
It was deceptively named.
> And so is not a word at all...
Q: When is a word not a word?
A: When it is a label!
Nope, not getting it.
Q: Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Better, glad to have a sensible question at last. Now, pay close attention, I will say this only once:
I've usually found it is better to be realistic, rather than unfailingly optimistic (or pessimistic). That way, when things go to sh*t or don't work out the way you expect, at least you can work through it, and probably feel better about it afterwards.
Having some Panglossian robot (or indeed person) telling you everything is peachy when it clearly isn't may also be harmful when you are inevitably disappointed.
Practising gratitude can be beneficial to mental health; OTOH, if it is being forced on you by someone telling you to be grateful (eg, "other people have it much worse than you"), it can be harmful because it makes you feel [1] worse (I shouldn't be stressed/grumpy).
At least a real person would tend to back off when you snap back at them, I can't see a robot doing that.
[1] men have feelings too ... right now I feel hungry.
@Mike 137, be grateful I upvoted you ... wait, no, cancel that.
After surgery at a major hospital in Los Angeles I found a Moxi trundling down the corridor. https://www.diligentrobots.com/moxi/
Initially, I thought there was something wrong with the anesthetic. Then I thought it was there to cheer up patients. Then I decided to stay in my room until they discharged me.
" The robots were programmed to improve users' mental health by encouraging them to perform psychological exercises to help them feel more positive, optimistic, grateful, and accomplished."
Translation.
The robots were programmed to emulate the techniques used by controlling psychopaths to gaslight employees into believing they were happy.
Only an HR department would think this was healthy.
Having read the comments, I spot a gap in the market for a robot (not too humanoid) that will visit your desk when you appear frustrated. It must be sturdy enough to withstand being kicked, beaten, attacked with a stapler, pummeled with hard objects, etc. The plan is to have it come to you with inspirational messages but then whimper away and go cower in a corner when attacked mercilessly.
The problem with a humanoid robot is it needs to present the same body language as a human else it's confusing and that's why we won't trust it.
A robot that doesn't look human is more comedic and we don't expect human body language from it, and if we see something that might be body language, we'll accept it easier as it's just a 'dumb' robot
: That's more relatable and that means it's more trustworthy.
Then you have the actual issue of how to deal with someone who is unhappy without tipping them over into a murderous rage: You don't tell them to be happy! You tell them you'll get the carpet roll or sheets of plastic and a shovel. Then they'll get you're offering to help burry the body and that should (hopefully) trigger a nervous laughter and a de-escalation.
People don't want to be angry, nor stressed, and it's frustrating that they can't simply stop these feelings and that makes them worse. That's the reason why telling someone to calm down or smile only makes matters worse: That's what they want to do but they can't so why tell them to do something they've not managed to do? Moron! Aaaaaaargh! (and so on). Where as asking them how things can get fixed, and then offering to help with that fix, no matter how stupid it might be, implies much greater empathy and understanding and that you desire to be of assistance, and THAT can help ease the frustration because there are now two of you out to fix the problem, meaning the problem is halved! And if that doesn't work, it's at least a lifeline from which to find what will work.
It's part of conflict resolution (well worth looking into) and mental health 'first aid' (learn to listen - again, well worth looking into). So programming robots to tell people to be happy will result in them breaking (blunt force trauma will do that) and the work force being even more miserable than before. But programming them to offer to go fetch the shovel... even if it then has to find excuses for why it can't find a shovel... that's how you get people to trust the robot more.
If it then suggests good places to burry the body... okay, that's when you should really worry.
Upvoted, but one tiny detail might need updating
"Where as asking them how things can get fixed, and then offering to help with that fix"
I once read that this is what men want, but women find it annoying. It's hard work to listen to some problem and *not* try to come up with a fix, but it *can* be done by reframing the problem as what the person needs rather than what the situation needs. And trying it myself I find it generally true, just listening to a woman and expressing sympathy works fine. The flip side is too much of that listening can toxic to a man, so know your limits. Apologies to various other gender identities, I don't know enough to speak about there.
To listen but not attempt give a thoughtful reply towards utility, is to treat someone as if they are hopeless and to encourage dishonest exchange of attention.
The cost of being listened to is listening to an alternative point of view otherwise someone is taking advantage of the other and that's not cool.
That's diminishing someone else to the role of object to be used as a matter of course.
The objectfied listener in this case performs similar function to an empty room in which the speaker hear their own echo aka echo chamber.
If someone volunteers for that unfair exchange that's their own business but to subject someone else to it forcefully is an act of aggression against their humanity.
Just because it's common doesn't make it healthy.
For example across the known world and all of history, people commonly get stabbed by instruments both blunt and sharp.
Yeah it is still quite unhealthy to be stabbed.
And so common behavior is not an authoritative standard what can be used to justify anything.
the scene.
Myself , stuck in cell #7 with a robot that does not want to play ball no matter how many times I restart it/reboot it/threaten it with a lump hammer , and its the PFY's day off and this robot comes trundling along saying "I hope you're having a nice day"......... at which point I go full BoFH mode.
After activating the vision and A.I. systems on all the rest of the robots, I point them in the direction of plating shop where our happy trundling robot's head is impaled on a spike and screaming, while I bad temperedly point out to them that piss me off and you'll be joining it. before stomping back to my lair to glare at the PC daring it to do anything wrong.
At which point the boss sticks his head around the door and says "You're looking more happy today".............................................................
It's insulting to get back talk from lifeless tools.
If I wanted a speech synthesis module to distract me I'll buy my own.
You imagine how awful life would be but every time you went to pick up a screwdriver it tried to chat you up?
I'd smash that screwdriver with a mallot until properly silent so I can get back to work.
Instead of spending company money on noise pollutants, send that money to my paycheck.
"improve users' mental health by encouraging them to perform psychological exercises to help them feel more positive, optimistic, grateful, and accomplished"
And these researchers actually thought that might be achieved? By a robot?? I can't imagine many things more irritating. Are we sure this wasn't some kind of Trojan horse, designed to covertly study how best to annoy people beyond endurance?
Why does everyone have to be happy all the ****ing time? What moron came up with that idea? I am a human being and my moods vary considerably. As a consequence I have good days and bad days, but the good days only happen BECAUSE OF THE BAD DAYS! Otherwise there would be zero contrast and every day would be the same as every other with no variation in level of happiness,.... just an endless monotony of sameness,... grey eternal sameness,...............
I am more and more glad that I WFH as if I was patronised/cajoled/shamed by such a device in an office, then I would be looking for a new job whilst they tried to separate the twitching, molten remains of the robot from the 415Volt power supply circuit.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
