LAUSR

Social Robotics Most of us know the classic peer-pressure question: “If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?” Vollmer et al. investigated whether robots can have the same effect on humans as our conspecifics do. Child or adult participants were asked to determine which of three lines on a screen was the same as a reference line, but there was a secret twist: Three confederates seated with the participant all gave the same wrong answer. Adults were more likely to go along with the group's wrong answer when the confederates were all humans but resisted the social pressure from a group of robots. Children, however, were susceptible to robot peer pressure, too, which raises the question of what safeguards are needed when young or vulnerable populations interact with automata. Sci. Robot. 3 , eaat7111 (2018).