[FuzzieDice]

http://www.hansonrobotics.com/

They are getting more and more lifelike all the time. What is really wild is the Albert Hubo robot.

[Art]

Great article Fuzzie! Thanks for sharing!

I thought Hanson's face looked familiar. I saw that picture of him with
the robot head on the counter in a copy of a magazine recently.

I spend quite a while at the site and really liked his thoughts on the
so called "Uncanny Valley" syndrome, which he flatly ignores.
************************
Indeed. Despite its status as dogma, the Uncanny Valley is nothing more than a theory. ?we have evidence that it?s true, and evidence that it?s not,? says Sara Kiesler, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University who studies human-robot interaction. She calls the debate ?theological,? with both sides arguing with firm convictions and little scientific evidence-and says that the back-and forth is most intense when it comes to faces. ?I?d like to test it,? she says, ?with talking heads.?

[Maviarab]

Where do you and Freddy find this stuff lol.

Wicked article Fd, well worth the read, very fascinating,

 :thanks:

[Freddy]

I took a look and thats a very interesting site, thanks.  I was trying to find something about the 'Uncanny Valley' issue but could not, can you shed any light on that Art please?
 :huh1:

[FuzzieDice]

I've vaguely remember hearing the term "Uncanny Valley", though I couldn't find any articles on the site other than their project descriptions, nor anything about the "Uncanny Valley". Though I've read a Wikipedia definition of it. From what I'm gathering, it seems just plain predjudiceness on the human's part. This "Uncanny Valley" thing could also apply, for example, to anything that a human finds strange, like a person from another planet or even a person from another country, or a person with many tatoos and piercings. Humans generally find repulsive anything that is not exactly as they are, or are tought a human "should be". This "Uncanny Valley" thing seems to me to be nothing more than racism against robots, as it were. And it will happen, and it won't go away.

I wonder if robots will ever become that racist, or feel opressed, or otherwise like they don't "fit in" being they look human, but are not human, so they don't "belong"? I wonder how this will be addressed in the future when even to this day people still can't accept some people with different color skin or a different (or no) religious belief or culture.

I also wonder if robots and AIs will eventually band together to form their own distinctive culture, traditions, laws, and rites/rituals, bylaws, etc.?

Interesting things to think about, I'm sure.

I guess I can't understand or comprehend the "uncanny valley" thing. I mean, I would never be repulsed by a robot or android that looked rather cool.

I wonder also if this "uncanny valley" thing applies to cyborgs and people with disabilities, prosthetic limbs, etc.?

[Art]

Freddy,

Down in the Valley...the valley so low.... OK enough singing...

Here's the excerpt that attempts to explain the Uncanny Valley theory:

In the late ?70s, a Japanese roboticist named Masahiro Mori published what would become a highly influential insight into the interplay between robotic design and human psychology. Mori?s central concept holds that if you plot similarity to humans on the x-axis against emotional reaction on the Y, you?ll find a funny thing happens on the way to the perfectly lifelike android. Predictably, the curve rises steadily, emotional embrace growing as robots become more human-like. But a certain point, just shy of true verisimilitude, the curve plunges down, through the floor of neutrality and into real revulsion, before rising again to a second peak of acceptance that corresponds with 100 percent human-like. This chasm-Mori?s Uncanny Valley-represents the notion that something that?s like a human but slightly off will make people recoil. Here there be monsters.


Basically the robots are ok and acceptable as toys but the closer they get to lifelike humans the risk of unacceptance increases to the point of revulsion. Is it real or is it memorex??

Oh yes, The full article from Popular science can be found here:
http://iiae.utdallas.edu/news/pop_science.html

Enjoy!

[Freddy]

Thank you.