According to a new study, the “death” of the robots has an effect on humans emotional feedback. A 42-year-old retail director from Bedford, Texas, Christal White, and her husband Peter, encountered a similar emotion after losing Jibo the robot that was introduced in her office two years ago. Despite the constant disturbances of the one-foot tall robot during office seminars, it provided entertainment to her children. Unfortunately, the robot shut down after sending a warning message that its servers will cease to function when its creator’s business failed. “My heart broke,” Christal said. “It was like an annoying dog that you don’t really like because it’s your husband’s dog. But then you realize you actually loved it all along.”

Research shows that people tend to project human attributes onto robots, more so when they act like or resemble humans or animals. According to Jonathan Gratch, an educator from a university in Southern California, “When we interact with another human, dog, or machine, how we treat it is influenced by what kind of mind we think it has. When you feel something has emotion, it now merits protection from harm.” However, some AI systems are aware of human receptions, so people may conceive that robots are wiser than humans. Due to this, some researchers assume that the makers of life-like robots are miscalculating the risks of being attached to such machines.