# Robots, Chatbots, Self-Driving Cars: Perceptions of Mind and Morality Across Artificial Intelligences

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.18683 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18683/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Feb 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Digital Companionship: Overlapping Uses of AI Companions and AI Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15905/) (2025)
- [Mental Models of Autonomy and Sentience Shape Reactions to AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09085/) (2025)
- [Can AI be a moral victim? The role of moral patiency and ownership perceptions in ethical judgments of using AI-generated content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26956/) (2026)
- [Method, Mind, and Morality: How People Make Sense of Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.24748/) (2026)
- [CompanionSim: Synthetic Data for Evaluating Anthropomorphism in Human-AI Relationships](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.00250/) (2026)
- [NeuCME: Toward Dynamic Multimodal Continual Learning via Neural Combinatorics of Multiple Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.07009/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

AI systems have rapidly advanced, diversified, and proliferated, but our knowledge of people's perceptions of mind and morality in them is limited, despite its importance for outcomes such as whether people trust AIs and how they assign responsibility for AI-caused harms. In a preregistered online study, 975 participants rated 26 AI and non-AI entities. Overall, AIs were perceived to have low-to-moderate agency (e.g., planning, acting), between inanimate objects and ants, and low experience (e.g., sensing, feeling). For example, ChatGPT was rated only as capable of feeling pleasure and pain as a rock. The analogous moral faculties, moral agency (doing right or wrong) and moral patiency (being treated rightly or wrongly) were higher and more varied, particularly moral agency: The highest-rated AI, a Tesla Full Self-Driving car, was rated as morally responsible for harm as a chimpanzee. We discuss how design choices can help manage perceptions, particularly in high-stakes moral contexts.