DON'T KICK THE ROBOT

If something's got no feelings, you can't hurt it, right? So where's the harm?

- DR KATE DARLING

A few years ago, someone asked me for advice on a workplace situation. His company was using a chatbot to help new employees and he had repeatedly noticed one person being disproportionally verbally abusive to it. "What do you think?" he asked me. "Is this an HR issue?"

The truth is, we don't know. But even though machines can't feel, it's worth thinking about what human behaviour is okay.

Over the next decade, our relationships to our devices will become a lot more interesting. Advanced chatbots and robot companions are on the rise, both extremely well-suited to tap into our social nature and make us behave as though we're interacting with something...alive. This raises the question: what does it mean to be verbally or physically violent toward an artificial agent?

People have already started to wonder. For example, during the mass adoption of virtual voice assistants, parents expressed concern that the little speakers in their living rooms were teaching their kids to be rude. Major companies such as Amazon and Google responded by releasing opt-in features that encouraged the use of 'please' and 'thank you', to prevent children from barking commands at the devices.