Humans Can Feel Empathy Toward Robots

Brain scans show we feel bad for robots when they're mistreated. Humans feel bad when they see other humans being mistreated, but do we feel the same way about robots? A team of researchers tested that by being first sweet and then really, really cruel to a poor little innocent dinosaur robot. The subjects in the study were shown two videos: in one, scientists acted affectionately toward the robot dinosaur, but in the second, they downright tortured it. Through skin conductance, a measure of str...