How do artificial agents think?

Abstract

Anthropomorphic artificial agents, computed characters or humanoid robots, can be sued to investigate human cognition. They are intrinsically ambivalent. They appear and act as humans, hence we should tend to consider them as human, yet we know they are machine designed by humans, and should not consider them as humans. Reviewing a number of behavioral and neurophysiological studies provides insights into social mechanisms that are primarily influenced by the appearance of the agent, and in particular its resemblance to humans, and other mechanisms that are influenced by the knowledge we have about the artificial nature of the agent. A significant finding is that, as expected, humans don’t naturally adopt an intentional stance when interacting with artificial agents.