Humans have a hard time 'killing' robots, especially when they beg for their lives

In a recent paper in the journal PLOS ONE, German researchers asked 89 college students to team up with a tiny, bright-eyed robot named Nao to answer questions and complete menial tasks. But, as is typical in experimental psychology, these tasks were a distraction from the real question under investigation: What happens when the humans had to turn the robot off? In 43 cases, the Verge reported earlier this month, "the robot protested, telling participants it was afraid of the dark and even begging: 'No! Please do not switch me off!'" As the researchers predicted, participants struggled to switch the machine--which they had previously worked with as a partner--off. Thirty of the humans took twice as long on average to turn off the robots compared to the group whose robots said nothing at all.