The Growing Problem of Humanizing Robots

One thing that seems to unite many scholars that study robots is the goal of one day creating a fully autonomous human-like robot capable of mimicking all human behaviors and emotions. Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are beginning to make what was once a thing of science fiction seem not only possible, but probable. To be fair, research has already demonstrated that humans do not need much in the way of prompting to treat and interact with technology as if it was human [1]. Yet, the current trend toward designing robots to be personal assistants, companions and even lovers may have unintended consequences that we have not fully considered.