Human Cooperation When Acting Through Autonomous Machines

Recent times have seen an emergence of intelligent machines that act autonomously on humans' behalf, such as autonomous vehicles. Despite promises of increased efficiency, it is not clear whether this paradigm shift will change how one decides when one's self-interest (e.g., comfort) is pitted against the collective interest (e.g., environment). Here the authors show that acting through machines changes the way people solve these social dilemmas and they present experimental evidence showing that participants program their autonomous vehicles to act more cooperatively than if they were driving themselves. The authors show that this happens because programming causes selfish short-term rewards to become less salient, leading to considerations of broader societal goals. The authors also show that the programmed behavior is influenced by past experience. Finally, they report evidence that the effect generalizes beyond the domain of autonomous vehicles. The authors discuss implications for designing autonomous machines that contribute to a more cooperative society.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817656116
• Authors:
  • de Melo, Celso M
  • Marsella, Stacy
  • Gratch, Jonathan
• Publication Date: 2019-2-26

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 3482-3487
• Serial:
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  • Volume: 116
  • Issue Number: 9
  • Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
  • EISSN: 1091-6490
  • Serial URL: http://www.pnas.org/

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Cooperation; Human factors
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Safety and Human Factors; Transportation (General); Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01705946
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 28 2019 9:43AM