Cultural Differences in People's Reactions and Applications of Robots, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence

Although research in cultural psychology has established that virtually all human behaviors and cognitions are in some ways shaped by culture, culture has been surprisingly absent from the emerging literature on the psychology of technology. In this perspective article, we first review recent findings on machine aversion versus appreciation. We then offer a cross-cultural perspective in understanding how people might react differently to machines. We propose three frameworks - historical, religious, and exposure - to explain how Asians might be more accepting of machines than their Western counterparts. We end the article by discussing three exciting human-machine applications found primarily in Asia and provide future research directions.