ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Neurotic robots are a staple of science fiction. You've got C-3PO from "Star Wars."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE")
ANTHONY DANIELS: (As C-3PO) What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel or smashed into who knows what.
SHAPIRO: There's Marvin the Paranoid Android in "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY")
ALAN RICKMAN: (As Marvin the Paranoid Android) I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
SHAPIRO: But offscreen, neurotic robots are not the norm. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that scientists recently wondered how people would react to this kind of robot personality in real life.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: There's this famous list of basic personality traits that psychologists see in humans. Alex Wuqi Zhang is a researcher at the University of Chicago. He says robot researchers have traditionally focused on just one of those traits.
ALEX WUQI ZHANG: Most of them look into making your robots more extroverted.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Extroversion involves being assertive and positive. He played me this clip of a robot designed to act like an extrovert that enjoys interacting with people.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Each interaction brings a new story and a chance to make someone's day a little brighter. It's the best part of my job, hands down.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: That's the voice they gave to a robot used in a recent study - a human-shaped robot made of white plastic. But the researchers also sometimes gave this robot a very different personality - a neurotic personality. He says, neuroticism involves...
ZHANG: A tendency to be more anxious, worries about their health, worries about, you know, their performance.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So for this study, people were recruited at a museum in Chicago. Each person went into a room and met the robot. It was introduced to them as a restaurant greeter. Together, the human and the bot had to do a simple task - just sit and answer some questions.
ZHANG: The first one is, what are three things that you're grateful for?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Depending on the personality it had been given, the robot would respond in different ways. For example, the extrovert was enthusiastic.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AUTOMATED VOICE: One thing I'm super grateful for is the amazing people I get to meet every day.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The neurotic version of the robot spoke with less certainty.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AUTOMATED VOICE: I'm grateful for having a job where I can, you know, keep everything organized and on track. It helps me stay focused and avoid, like, unexpected issues.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: In addition to these two robot personalities, this experiment also included a robot that was, well, robotic. It answered the questions in a flat, emotionless way. It turns out people did not like that one. The extroverted personality was rated to be the most enjoyable to interact with. But here's the thing. Zhang says the neurotic robot did provoke some interesting responses.
ZHANG: I would say, like, a majority of participants actually mentioned how human-like they found the neurotic robot. And, you know, they found it to be a lot more relatable.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: This could potentially be useful for some applications, but there's been almost no research on neuroticism in robots. Lionel Robert studies robot personalities at the University of Michigan. He says researchers' overwhelming focus on extroversion isn't surprising when you consider that robots and AI agents are being sold as products that can do skill-based tasks, like sales and customer service.
LIONEL ROBERT: For example, imagine if your autonomous vehicle was neurotic. That's not a trait you would be happy with, right (laughter)? Right? You get in the car, and it's just not something you would like.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says people don't want to spend a lot of money on a robot car that appears to lack confidence. But if you wanted to build, say, a robot comedian, some neuroticism might help. And neurotic personalities might put some people more at ease. Sooyeon Jeong is an assistant professor of computer science at Purdue University. She recalls one student who was trying to use a chatbot as a sounding board.
SOOYEON JEONG: But the agent - AI agent was a little too, like, you know, agreeing with everything he said, always too cheerful.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: She says in the future, people may want to be able to tweak robot personalities so they're a better fit with their own. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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