If an explosives robot becomes your friend, can you still send it off to die?

"When you're deployed you're in a situation where you're potentially lonely and far from home," says Carpenter. "You work in proximity to the robot on a daily basis." She compares the bots to a high-tech version of a military working dog — there's a reason Boston Dynamics named its pack robot BigDog. Designers, she says, actively keep that relationship to a pet-like level, rather than looking for something more autonomous that could take decision-making options away from humans.

But even a pet-like connection could potentially be dangerous. Carpenter's study isn't meant to measure anything statistically, and the people she interviewed didn't believe that their robotic cameraderie affected their decision-making. But it's possible that sympathetic instincts could end up affecting split-second decision-making, she says. That said, how would you stop a process that seems all but inevitable? Carpenter questions, among other things, how much we should be trying to make some robots look like people or animals. BigDog can survive a roll in the mud, but it's almost tragic watching it struggle to its feet.

"Your instinct when you see it fall over is 'That's sad,'" says Carpenter. And that sadness could compromise its use.Not all robots were born to die, though, and there are plenty of benefits to anthropomorphized machines. If someone doesn't have experience interacting with robots, they may be more comfortable with something that suggests a human form. And DARPA is testing disaster response robots that mimic humans or apes, since those bipedal and dexterous designs make it easier to navigate environments designed for people.