Yes. I felt sorry for the robot too, even though I knew I shouldn’t have.
Isn’t that strange though? In reality all he did is push something equal to a toaster, but because it displayed human characteristics we felt sympathy. That is some scary stuff because I assume as the decades move on they will create robots more and more human like until it will be impossible to tell the difference, and they advance fast don’t they. I look at video games today, they could pass for real life videos when only 20 years ago Pac man seemed to be the height of computer video technology. So imagine 20 years from now, you are at a party, the guest offers you a drink and you are saying hello to everyone and this gorgeous woman comes up and says hello, and you get to talking and you ask her “What do you do for a living” and she tells you “Oh I’m sorry, I’m an artificial person. I was only created 2 days ago”. This where we are heading.
It’s form is a mimic of the human form, so attribute human emotion to it?
Actually in a different context, a series of human like forms were introduced to a test group, seeking social reactions. What they found was a tolerance for the mimicry, as long as it was obviously flawed, thus easily perceived as a fake. A ‘too-perfect’ presentation which appeared human but gave ‘wrong’ body language cues, came across as deception, and provoked great hostility once perceived as a prop.
Then you have the robot groupies that want to cuddle and protect a ‘Fur-by’
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/a-brief-history-of-human-cruelty-to-robots-493
http://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9781617230042