Trash talk hurts, even when it comes from a robot

Not only can robots beat humans at games, it turns out they can effectively trash talk us during them, too. Trash talking has a long and colorful history of flustering game opponents, and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated that discouraging words can be perturbing even when uttered by a robot.

Discouraging words from machines impair human game play study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University show that programmed humanoid robot Pepper to talk smack to humans while playing a strategy game against them — and despite the relatively tame nature of the bot’s insults, it was still able to get into its opponents’ heads and negatively affect their game play.