[Tyler]

A Path Out of the Uncanny Valley
     


We're all familiar with Masahiro Mori's Uncanny Valley,
the hypothesis that attempts to explain why non-anthropomorphic robots
seem cute but as their appearance becomes more human, humans find them
creepier. Deep in the uncanny valley, we find zombies, corpses, and
androids, such as the one pictured above, created by Hanson Robotics. Is it time to
rethink the Uncanny Valley hypothesis? Johan Eklund writes,
I just finished my thesis about "humans
heterogeneous reactions towards robots". Johan goes on to summarize his
findings:
In my own opinion I have an
explanation of our "forgiving reactions on the abstract robot" that is
novel (with refs to Scott
McCloud's examination of
comics). A focus on
the theoretical explanation of our positive reactions to the abstract
robot, could also compliment or replace a simple listing of our
heterogeneous reaction to robots, which can be found
elsewhere. The
short version of "our forgiving reactions towards the abstract robot" is
that the abstract expression is further from our daily visual experience
with the world, and because of that we don't intuitively know the
premisses and implications that are valid. This stands in contrast to
the more analog expression which is more in accordance with our
experience with the world. Because of this we immediately know the
premisses for the analog expression but not so for the more abstract
expression. Not immediately knowing the valid premisses for an abstract
object can thus be describes as: "a forgiving reaction to the abstract
expression".

For more see Johan's full
thesis (PDF format) or, if you don't read Danish, try the English
language abstract
of his thesis (PDF format). Johan also recommends David
Hanson's recent TED talk for more on the subject.

   

http://robots.net/article/2933.html
     

[one]

Tyler,
Thank you for the insight and a bump up on the hot air balloons jpg (Wasn't sure if it was buried or would be found)

Personally I equate robots like Aliens,, Their is an acceptance if their is control/domination of something that we come close to identifying with personally.
I do see the unacceptable attitude position people take if something gets too close to being what they can't unplug or totally control and possibly replace them.

Yes this is a little babble but I know you understand/tolerate obscure talk from machines, oops I mean, people like me 

Regards,
J.

[Art]

I don't know...One...
You're beginning to scare me!