Do robots feel pain?

A research team from Carnegie Mellon University has developed a set of robots that encourage users to express their negative emotions by physically taking them out on the bots. The idea is that hitting, smashing, stabbing or swearing at one of the team’s four “Cathartic Objects” allows people to safely practice a form of catharsis and help themselves feel better.

One of the bots moves from side to side when it is stabbed with a sharp object. When it has been poked too many times, it shakes continuously until all the sharp objects are removed. With another one, users write a personal message on a tile and then insert it into a covered slot. They can then hit the robot with a hammer, breaking the tile and causing the bot to light up and make noise.

There’s also a bot that users can swear at — it will “absorb” the curse words thrown at it and “repurpose them as light energy.” And lastly, a robot in the shape of a small doll will emit an annoying laughing sound when it detects the user needs to blow off steam. The user can then pick it up and hit it against something until it stops laughing.