Our tools redefine what it means to be us: perceived robotic agency decreases the importance of agency in humanity

Past work has primarily focused on how the perception of robotic agency influences human-robot interaction and the evaluation of robotic progress, while overlooking its impact on reconsidering what it means to be human. Drawing on social identity theory, we proposed that perceived robotic agency diminishes the importance of agency in humanity. We conducted three experiments (N = 920) to test this assumption. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated perceived robotic agency. Experiments 2 and 3 separately measured and manipulated distinctiveness threat to investigate the underlying mechanism. Results revealed that high (vs. low) perceived robotic agency reduced ratings of the essentiality of agency in defining humanity (Experiments 1 and 2); distinctiveness threat accounted for this effect (Experiments 2 and 3). The findings contribute to a novel understanding of how ascriptions of humanity are evolving in the AI era.