Computer Characters Tortured for Science

Rob Carr writes "Considered unethical to ever perform again with humans, researcher Mel Slater recreated the Milgram experiment in a immersive virtual environment. Subjects (some of whom could see and hear the computerized woman, others who were only able to read text messages from her) were told that they were interacting with a computer character and told to give increasingly powerful electric shocks when wrong answers were given or the 'woman' took too long to respond. The computer program would correspondingly complain and beg as the 'shocks' were ramped up, falling apparently unconscious before the last shock. The skin conductance and electrocardiograms of the subjects were monitored. Even though the subjects knew they were only 'shocking' a computer program, their bodies reacted with increased stress responses. Several of the ones who could see and hear the woman stopped before reaching the 'lethal' voltage, and about half considered stopping the study. The full results of the experimental report can be read online at PLoS One. Already, some (like William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute) are asking whether even this sanitized experiment is ethical."

Re:Did subjects know about the Milgram experiment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, you fail. The REAL objective of the study was to test literacy in slashdot posters.
FTFA...

"For those 12 in the VC who wanted to stop before the end, 5 claimed to be well-acquainted with the original Milgram study"

The secondary objective was to test for the proportion of slashdot readers that RTFA.

RTFA

[SanityInAnarchy]

Yes, they were told beforehand that they were shocking a computer program. Even so, they felt increased stress levels.

Now, is it still unethical?

Re:Why unethical?

[justinbach]

Speaking as a cognitive scientist, I can tell you that dealing with IRBs (internal review boards) for getting experimental approval gives you a different appreciation of the term "ethics" than might be understood by someone trying to live a morally sound lifestyle (for which, btw, I applaud you).

Essentially, in order for an IRB to approve a study to be performed using human subjects, one of two requirements must be met: either there is ABSOLUTELY NO RISK involved on the part of the subject (i.e. simple psychophysical tests of perception and so forth), or the risks must be outweighed by the potential gain in scientific knowledge that the experiment offers (i.e. clinical trials of drugs that, while risky, hold the promise of curing serious illnesses).

All studies require that subjects sign an IRB-approved consent form that enumerates the risks inherent in the experiment (or lack thereof), and IRBs require a submission of experimental intent and aim so that they may weigh the potential risks and benefits of the experiment. Some people would argue that *any* experiment is ethical as long as you can find subjects willing to be a part of them and sign a liability waiver, but the reality of the situation is that before any subject even has the option to sign their life away an IRB must first approve that such a situation would be ethically sound. Without IRB approval, you won't get published, and without being published, you won't get funding. That's the cycle.

Milgram's original experiments were deemed unethical because of the psychological trauma experienced by the subjects being ordered to up the voltage. They were put in the emotionally distressing situation of having to choose between following the experimenter's (i.e. authority figure's) orders and their own moral code, and this situation has since been deemed unacceptable. The reason for this is that the experiment's potential insights into the frailty of human morality in the face of authority simply weren't interesting or essential enough for the advancement of science to justify the risks of seriously traumatizing the subjects.

As far as I can tell, the reason this experiment is more experimentally justifiable is simply because the "victim" is explicitly virtual--a fact of which subjects are aware--so the situation, as it doesn't involve hurting actual people, isn't as emotionally traumatizing.

Re:Of course it's ethical

[venicebeach]

It showed that some people would cause harm (not kill) another person when instructed to do so by an authority figure.

According to Blass (milgram biographer & social psychologist), "the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location".

Re:OT: Slashdotter Firefox add-on

[vidarh]

Definitively not just you... I didn't even remember I had the extension installed. Checked just now after seeing your message, and finally the Ajax stuff works again, so thanks :)

Re:Unethical?

[Paladin144]

Of course, in the original experiment the people were eventually told "it's okay, it was just a simulation"... but they may still have felt a deep guilt for a short time, and were probably very emotionall conflicted during the experiment. I've watched some of the footage of the experiment, and it is quite interesting and somewhat scary at times. Some subjects end up begging to the "research authority" to let the experiment end, because they are worried about killing the actor. The anguish and concern in the subjects is quite obvious. (It is also quite scary how many of them continued zapping the actor, even after all their protests, simply because someone in a lab coat kept repeating "please continue with the experiment protocol".)

Exactly. These are people who willingly -- without forceful coercion -- shocked a person to death BEFORE finding out it was an experiment. My considered, rational and scientific opinion of these people is: Fuck'em. I have no pity for a person who just killed (in their mind) another human being because some dude in a labcoat told them to.

You seem to think there's unethical behavior involved in Milgram's experiment. I disagree. It's just an experiment. Instead, the darkness is inside the subjects doing the dirty deeds. All the experiment does is dredge up that evil and lay it bare before all. The subject should be joyful that they didn't kill anybody since they so clearly would have. The only patholiogical part of Milgram's experiment lay deep in the minds and souls of those who flipped the switch.

And according the results, approximately 60% of the population would have done it.

Though the pain was simulated, the emotional repercussions to the subjects were real. Some may have felt a guilt that continued well after the experiment. ("I know it was just an experiment... but if it had have been real I would have acted the same way... does that make me a bad person?")

Yes.

Re:RTFA

[Erioll]

The Miligram study already exists, we don't need to re-try it to ensure that people will follow orders.

Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen to be able to either verify, or dismiss any study. It either needs to be repeatable to a reasonable degree of certainty, or disproven. Repeatability is an intrinsic mark of science. Now perhaps the COST of repeating is so high as to never do it (physical or mental damage to the subjects), but just saying "it's been done" is not sufficient reason to deny recreating the study.

And adding an aspect where the subjects KNOW the pain is virtual... that's an interesting twist IMO, and well worth examining.

Re:Why unethical?

[Valdrax]

Seems that most of humans in the test were in fact UNETHICAL.

Interesting. You fall into the same trap as many of the psychologists who decried the experiments when they were published -- that the subjects must all be inherently flawed and that normal, good, decent people would never find themselves failing in the same manner. You ignore that in 1963, most of the test subjects were probably church-going Christians themselves. Even the researchers performing the experiment were convinced beforehand that no more than 1.2% of subjects would go all the way to deadly voltage.

In fact, 65% did. None stopped before 300 volts, and the shocks started at 45 volts and increased 15 volts each time. That means that a minimum of 16 shocks were delivered by every single subject. The experiment was stopped when the subjects either refused to continue or objected more than 4 times. The experimenters expected that most subjects would stop at 150 volts (8 shocks) and that no more than 4% would make it to 300 volts.

Let me repeat that again. Every single subject shocked people up to 16 times, well into the "dangerous" range on the dial. None of the subjects knew what they were getting into at the time. They were being led to believe that they were helping perform a test on memory of the "electocuted" actor.

Milgram got similar results in the 19 other experiments exploring variations on the theme. He found that increased emotional distance from the subject increased the willingness to go all the way while seeing and hearing the victim scream and writhe and having the authority figure be more remote decreased it. However, all replications of the original experiment got deadly shock results in the 61-66% range.

Now, what are the odds that 65% of Americans in 1963 were all rotten murderers and 100% were vicious torturers? Pretty bad if you believe that the populace isn't inherently ready to perform these kinds of acts without realizing it. The odds of getting so many latent torturers is pretty bad unless the percentage of latent torturers in the population is really, really high.

Quite frankly, you've never been tested like they have. You've probably never been put in a similar situation, and you have the advantage of knowing ahead of time to watch out for this sort of thing. Many of the subject expressed gratitude for having been in the experiment because it made them face what lies within them. At least one wrote back that when he was drafted for the Vietnam War, he was far more aware of what being put under someone else's authority would mean for him and how he was ready now to put the foot down if ordered to do something horrible.

Who knows, maybe you're actually more ethical than most, but I want you to remember your words every SINGLE time the temptation arises to cut corners to meet a boss' impossible deadlines, every time the temptation comes to make an excuse to the customer to avoid getting reported, every time the temptation comes to tell a white lie to avoid any form of disapproval from anyone for ANY reason.

Because the potential for evil lies within you too. It lies within us all.

Re:Computer / Photoshopped Pornography

[Phanatic1a]

. Right now it is illegal to possess any form of 'child' pornography (rightfully so) - and there have been some defense attempts to show that the images aren't real- they're photoshopped.

Well, no, that's not true, at least not in the US.

There *was* a law passed which made possession of the mere depiction of child porn illegal. Even if it was a completely computer generated image, or line drawing, or even a young-looking adult dressed up in, say, a Girl Scout uniform, it would be every bit as illegal as actual photographs of the rape of a 5-year-old. All that was required was for the image to "appear" to be a minor engaged in sexual conduct. And, too, it wasn't just pictures, but any kind of depiction, like a written story.

The Supreme Court rightly determined that that law was unconstitutional. Several years ago. The case was Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft.