Hi and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah, and this episode is a Valentine's special where I talk with Kate Darling, researcher at MIT Labs, all about our emotional relationships with robots.

We already know that we have an innate tendency to anthropomorphize robots, but as we begin to share more and more spaces, both social and private, with these machines, what does that actually

mean for how we'll interact with them? From our lighter sides, from affection and love and emotional

support to our darker sides, what do these relationships teach us about ourselves, our tendencies,

and our behaviors? How will these relationships in turn change us? And what models should we be

thinking about as we

develop these increasingly sophisticated relationships with our robots?

Besides just that natural instinct that we have to anthropomorphize all sorts of things,

how is it different with robots? Robots are just so fascinating because we know rationally

that they're machines, that they're not alive, but we

treat them like living things. With robots, I think they speak to our primal brain even more

than like a stuffed animal or some other object that we might anthropomorphize is because

they combine movement and physicality in this way that makes us automatically project intent onto them.

So that's why we project more onto them than like the Samsung monitor that I'm looking at back here, because it looks like it has agency in the world.

Yeah, I think that tricks our brains.

There are a lot of studies that show that we respond differently to something in our physical space than just something on a screen. So even though

people will imbue everything with human-like qualities, robots take it to a new level because of

this physical movement. People will do it even with very, very simple robots, just like the

Rumba vacuum cleaner. You know, it's not a very compelling anthropomorphic robot,

and yet people will name them and feel bad for them when they get stuck

and insist on getting the same one back if it gets broken.

Oh, my gosh, really?

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