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Why the Uncanny Valley Doesn't Really Matter
malachiorion writes "Are humanoid bots and CGI characters still crawling their way out of the Uncanny Valley? Maybe, but maybe it doesn't matter. Here's a cold, hard look at a popular robotics theory that might have no legs to stand on, android or otherwise. It's everything that seems wrong and irrelevant about the Uncanny Valley that I wasn't able to fit into this month's Popular Mechanics cover story on social bots."
insect politics
I think it's weird that some people have a fascination with humanoid robots in the first place. seems like most Japanese robot efforts (at least those that make the press here) are in that vein. sure, there's a golden place in the future for replicants and sex slaves, but to me those seem like fairly narrow niches. if I'm designing robots with the goal of getting useful stuff done, I certainly wouldn't start with a humanoid layout, with all respect to evolution ;)
I admit it, all the Japanese robot coverage I see is either kawai-oriented or thinly-veiled sex-slave oriented (or both). no doubt that only reflects my taste in paper an online media...
there's no Uncanny Valley for Roombas.
Check out the Rack on that Android. Is it a drop in?
Many biologists think that dog attack cats and dolphins attack sharks for the reason that the latter of each pairing is too similar to the former of each, that the former might draw the comfort of familiarity until the revulsion of what appears to be an abomination of one's own species at closer inspection -- an "Uncanny Valley in the wild" so to speak. Are dogs and cats friendly once they've become acquainted? Oftentimes. Are sharks and dolphins friendly after becoming acquained in a controlled environment? I'll leave that as an experiment up to the user.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Let's worry about it when robots that fall into this scenario actually exist.
love is just extroverted narcissism
with all respect to evolution
Humans are a small niche in biological evolution. Most creatures are very well adapted for specific environments and life strategies, which I presume is the underlying point you are making about how robots should be designed. If you have a recent model new car that is midrange or higher in price, you have a robot. Roombas, appliances with computers in them, washing machines, dishwashers, robots all. We just haven't been calling them that.
Regardless of the uncanny valley, I don't really see the point in making robots humanoid in the first place. There's only a handful of tasks such a machine would be optimal for, and just having a human do it will still be the better choice for quite a while.
Whoa sexy robot.
TFA says that
- it may be more nuanced than people originally thought [i.e. the "absolute level of human-likeness" may not be the problem, but mismatched levels [great skin, awful eyes don't go together and are jarring]
- may have gender bias
- seems to depend on you viewing something remotely in 2d vs interacting with something real in the same room [the latter didn't seem to engender the same creepyness in those tested]
Since I don't live in japan nor do I visit robotics labs, I don't have much occasion to interact with near-humanoid robots. So my UV experiences are limited to movies and video games.
I remember seeing the Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie in the theater and just minutes into the movie I was convinced I was looking at real humans. Or rather, there was nothing in the film that made me dissociate with the characters; they were as "real" to me as watching actors. I kept trying to "zoom out" of the movie/picture and try to critically evaluate the job they did rendering the characters, but I kept defaulting to treating them as humans and getting sucked back into the movie. Mission accomplished on their part, i guess.
I think the UV effect is definitely apparent in 2D matter -- as a fan of anime I am more inclined to "accept" characters that are absolutely impossible.. both physically and emotionally.. but which do not attempt to persuade me they are more than they are. Yet when video game makers get something slightly wrong it _is_ a jarring experience. I've seen video game cutscenes where there are clearly a lot of polygons and textures and art time involved...but something just seems off and instead of you being wowed [or ideally, _not wowed_] you are left feeling disappointed. You know everyone worked hard to try and make the scene but they absolutely did not pull it off.. and the game experience is worse as a result. Mistakes that land your artwork into the "UV" category turn people into videogame/art critics instead of people enjoying an interactive experience.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Robot actors, doctors, teachers etc. all would likely be more personable/likable with a human form and appearance. I'm sure you can imagine a humanoid robot being a bit more comfortable to be around than something out of the terminator series at the doctor's office as an example. The point of humanoid robots likely goes beyond being a cute-bot or any of the examples I've used.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
It was the first virtual world which I could see as real, which I didn't have to pretend otherwise because all previous efforts has give-aways that it was fake. It looked goood (and if you sat through the credits, the masses of names hint towards the work needed to make this so) and that's why it's so successful and a breakthrough, imo.
Humanoid robots are great as they can use the same tools as humans can and can more easily relate to humans. Why build several $5,000 domestic chore robots that need special tools when you can buy one $20,000 humanoid robot that does all of the shores, need no special tools to clean the toilets, do the dishes, and vacuum the floor except the cheap tools humans already use. Plus make it so you can shag the robot so that makes it win-win... Kinda hard to have a relationship with a Roomba....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
went on their famous expedition, there was a black guy in their group, york
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_(explorer)
the native americans would stand in slack jaw amazement at york, as if he were possessed of magic. they never saw a black man before. york would further dumbfound them by taking out and reinserting his false teeth
meanwhile, consider the cantina scene in star wars: aliens of extreme forms, and humans mingling in with them as if no big deal
both the cantina scene and york's experience are the truth: our amazement at first is profound and very real at seeing new ethnicities/ life forms. but it also wears off very quick
we can get used to interacting with anything. the uncanny valley is real, but its also very temporary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The article says that one of the designers "deliberately seeks out the uncanny" by making his robots buzz and click, by making them incomplete.
What this is doing is keeping them firmly on the "cartoon" side of any such valley. If it exists or not, robots that are deliberately avoiding it aren't evidence one way or the other.
I'm sure you can imagine a humanoid robot being a bit more comfortable to be around than something out of the terminator series at the doctor's office as an example.
"What? My appointment with doctor Smith isn't until four o'clock?
I'll be back."
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
I think it's weird that some people have a fascination with humanoid robots in the first place.
Everything we have is designed to work with our humanoid bodies, so if we want to make a device that interfaces with those things, it will work better if it shares the humanoid design.
You can't take the sky from me...
Kinda hard to have a relationship with a Roomba....
I take it you've tried?
Uncanny valley may not be real, or be more a problem for CGI than real-life...but the examples proposed are not enough to prove this, or disprove it: All the robots are still clearly too far within the not-human region to enter the uncanny valley imho.
Uncanny is something that try to pass for human and may be successful, from far away, if you do not pay attention, in bad light. Not the case here, far from it....
Those are like dolls, and non-scary ones (some dolls are more deep in the uncanny than those robots).
Of the 3 examples, I feel only the baby-robot start to look like he can enter the valley - mainly because of it's too-large rubber skin. The first one looks like a real-life attempt to recreate the hero from "robots" (the animation from 2005), and the MIT one looks like industrial design from apple 3 years ago...
Wasn't impressed with the article.
He calls the Uncanny Valley "a groundless thought experiment", when it's really a simple description of a phenomenon that I (and presumably many other people) have experienced.
He goes on to say that people aren't frightened by humanoid robots. My experience with the uncanny has never frightened me. It's more of a vague repulsion and an emotional disinterest.
He then goes on to talk about a series of robots that aren't nearly human-like enough to trigger the uncanny valley phenomenon. Honestly the phenomenon seems much more relevant to the computer graphics world than it does to robotics at this moment in time.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
What I said in the Popular Mechanics comments:
Apparently in all his research on the Uncanny Valley the author missed or ignored the oft-remarked reason why the phenomenon *is* important: robots are expensive, and if people don't like them in their *first* impression, it's not worth the cost. 'Social' robots are not going to be seen in homes first, that's too expensive. The first market for social robots will be in some form of customer relations where replacing hourly employees makes business sense, but NOT if that means customers leave for whoever still has real people.
So yes, people can adapt to robots, duh, we're rational animals. However, if somebody is expecting a person, they get a robot, *and* they feel uncomfortable about it, even for a few minutes, that might be enough of a catalyst to consciously OR unconsciously cause them to look for services not provided by robots, ultimately damaging the company that bought the robot to fill the role.
Also, you allude to studies that show that the uncanny valley may not be 'real' for women but may be so for men. After all, Mori himself was male, maybe he what he thought applied to everybody only applied to his male experience. That doesn't mean the uncanny valley doesn't exist, it just means it isn't within the parameters originally believed to be understood. Basically by citing the study, you admit that it has been scientifically shown to exist, just in a more limited sense. Hardly discrediting.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Which would you rather talk to on the phone? Horrible robot voice or Real live human voice?
Now imagine instead of just the voice it's the whole face, body, movement, etc. NO THANKS.
It's odd though, I think I could somehow handle talking to "Robbie the Robot" better than I could these creepy rubber dolls (like the one in TFA). Creepy as hell.
crazy dynamite monkey
Mega-Maid...
She's gone from suck to blow!
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Asimov's robots were nearly all humaniform, and the reason is simple and explained in the stories -- we have a lot of tools that have been designed to fit human hands and feet and eyes and ears. Wheeled robots can't cope with stairs, so legs are the logical choice (although it could be said that three or four might be better than two). Lets see your Roomba clean the stairs! Now, had you a humaniform robot you would have no need for a roomba, as the humaniform robot could operate your existing Hoover, as well as your dishwasher, lawnmower, etc.
At least one Asimov robot wasn't humaniform. The short story "Sally" had vehicles outfitted with positronic brains.
Free Martian Whores!
Dr. Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your illness and I realized that it's not actually a bacteria. Every bacteria on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but your illness do not. It moves to an area and it multiplies and multiplies until every natural resource is consumed and the only way it can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. You have a disease, a cancer. You're a plague and I will find you the cure.
Am I the only person that has never been bothered by this "uncanny valley"? So it looks sort of like a person but doesn't actually. So what? That has never disturbed me. I've never understood why things that look almost but not quite human bother people.
Robot actors
How about Steven Segal? Or Tom Cruise? Dolph Lundgren? Ah-nuld Schwartzenegger? Sylvester Sallone? Jean-Claude Van Damme? Vin Diesel?
There's already been a number of successful robotic actors.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Somehow nobody has trouble dealing with the Muppets, or the Henson-created aliens on Farscape; even little children deal with them, and my non-techie mother-in-law thinks my wife's Rygel doll is "cute". (Well, maybe it looks better than Rygel did; point is she doesn't say "it's a squishy frog".) Somehow the folks at Pixar manage to make an architect's lamp behave enough to make people think of it as a creature. Humans can accept a *lot*.
Very thought-provoking article, especially since I'd experienced the Uncanny Valley but had never been exposed to the topic like this. I wonder if the concept is related to how people act in cases on anonymity or distance with other humans, such as the Internet, politics, and war. When I read the article, I felt echoes from these categories where we, as humans, have a tendency to de-humanize or treat our opposition differently than we would if we interacted with them directly.
Much to my surprise, she's real. Uncanny.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
This seems somewhat familiar:
"Press or say one if you hate calling this number because you can never talk to another human being when calling"
And, anyway, robot technology is improving every year, and as such they're doing their best to cross the uncanny valley and getting better all the time. Meanwhile, on this side, we're doing our best to cross to their side, led by Michael Jackson, Cher, Tila Tequila, and Jocelyn Wildenstein.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
No, I have a suspicion that the author is trying to make having uh, romantic relations with robots socially acceptable. Also, don't Google Doll Fuckers you sick perverts!
We all want to own a slave. We all want to be able to say "get me a beer from the fridge" and have something that doesn't look like a fridge do it. Every time. With no back talk.
I think a key problem here is simply that humanity has evolved elaborate behaviors and telltales for communication even without intent. For example, in a store there are distinct differences in the behavior of someone looking for something versus someone walking purposefully to a destination. Irritation is easily transmitted. What this means is that for the typical human, there are limits to how well they can deceive another human. I think that's one of the causes of the uncanny valley. If you're in the valley, then the behavioral cues either cannot be interpreted or even worse are merely a skin that can be readily changed.
Violations of these behaviors and evolved protocols can really upset us. For example, a scene in Terminator II shows the evil robot of the movie (which can take anyone's form that it kills) has earlier (unknown to the audience) taken over the form of a woman talking on the phone to her son. The audience senses something is wrong, the dog is barking hectically outside and the woman is trying suspiciously to milk the son for information on his location. She gets the name of the dog wrong. It's only then that we know she's the killer robot. Right after the call ends, we find the robot also killed the husband of the woman while casually talking on the phone. Think about that. Someone who can chat on the phone without even a trace of emotion or extertion while killing a person at the same time. Bladerunner explores this to great extent (the opening scene is a great example). Silence of the Lambs is in part about a hideous serial killer who shows no remorse and reveals of himself only what he wishes.
We are scared of people who can lie and kill without the deed showing in their behavior and that fear is readily milked in many movies about murderous robots and calm psychopaths. I believe this is part of the uncanny valley. We've evolved over time to share a common nonverbal system of communication. Anything which can exploit this system, be it beings that don't look quite right or can deceive us completely and effortlessly, triggers a warning in us.
Isn't that what woman are for ? ...forgot this is /.
Dogs are domesticated wolves...who live and hunt in packs. If the cat is an accepted member of the pack, it will be tolerated by the dog. This is a vast oversimplification, of course, but what it comes down to. Man has selectively bred dogs for specific tasks since domesticating them...so we have dogs for hunting, herding, security, and companionship. Depending on which tasks the dog was bred for will determine whether it's sociable with other pets. Even then, there will be variation between individuals of the same breed and while some breeds are more cat/pet-friendly than others, each dog is still an individual and results will vary. If they dog accepts the cat or cats as part of its pack, there's no problem. If the dog doesn't have a strong prey drive, it may just ignore the cat. Either way, it has nothing to do with the Uncanny Valley.
I'm sure you can imagine a humanoid robot being a bit more comfortable to be around than something out of the terminator series at the doctor's office as an example.
"What? My appointment with doctor Smith isn't until four o'clock?
I'll be back."
You'll be back? Well I should certainly hope so, my silver-skulled simpleton! Late for your last appointment, early for this one, it's a wonder you ever should turn up at all, you Meat-packed metal moron, you colossal chrome cretin!
Oh, the pain, the pain of it all...
Bow-ties are cool.
But why not just build the fridge into the robot? Or perhaps some sort of beer cannon?
Monstar L
The first market for social robots will be fuckbots. You must be new here.
The best answer I've heard to this is that our (human) world\civilization has been built around our bodies and the easiest way to have machines most easily interact with that world is to design them as humanoid objects with as many of the same faculties as possible.
Carbonated beverages being delivered at velocity? You didn't even try to think that one through, huh?
What do you expect, Mother? I'm HALF MACHINE!
--Buster Bluth
Like this one?
http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html
Your idea has been stolen by the past!
i would not recommend building any kind of cannon into a robot designed to serve us, just in case...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Human contact has been replaced by machines lots of places like bank clerks who has been almost fully replaced by online banking and cash machines, or how about ticket machines or vending machines? I have a dishwasher and washing machine, none of those are built the way I'd wash dishes or do laundry. The point is not that machines suck at being useful, it's that they suck at being humans. I'd rather in fact not have a clippy interface to my machine if I can help it. Why does everyone seem to think a humanoid robot would be such a great solution? Would you like to piggyback on a humanoid robot to work every day? Do you honestly think it's good design to command a robot to use a remote control to tune your TV when you could command the TV to tune itself?
Don't get me wrong, eventually we will need some sort of general robot but my home could be a lot more intelligent than it is. There's no universal "bus" that things expose themselves to, and I don't mean building a special house full of special tools that are all built to work together. I mean something that'll be pretty much as basic as electricity and everything announces itself and lets me turn on and off lamps, turn up and down the heating, tune the TV, monitor the oven (maybe not set that one), check the status of my washing machine all in one dashboard right here, without getting my ass off the chair. That would at least be a start...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Humanoid robots terrify me to no end. At first, I was simply bothered by the fact that people were trying to develop this technology. I couldn't understand what new functionality they were trying to develop, and I didn't see why they would simply try to duplicate the existing functionality of human beings (since there are already billions of us around).
Now that I've thought about it, I think the new "functionality" they want to add is compliance. They want to say to something, resembling a person, "do this" and have them do it without talking back. Basically, they want someone to serve them without ever having to consider that person's needs or feelings. They want someone to go and take car of their mother or their children for them, so that they don't have to. They want someone who will have sex with them for no reason other than their desire for sex.
So some day, the hope is, we will be surrounded by human-looking robots who will cater to our every whim and never give us any trouble. I don't think that's good for us, and I question the mental stability of someone who would want to live that way.
A robot that would be use in any random setting or handling various chores would probably be best designed as a humanoid. The tools it would use while preforming the tasks are already designed for us to use. If I want to have a robot to do my chores, I'd rather not have to buy all new tools as well to enable it to do them. And even if I did get specialized accessories to enable the robot to work for me, How the hll am I going to use the lawn mover designed for the spider bot with 4 arms when it breaks?
Everything we have is designed to work with our humanoid bodies, so if we want to make a device that interfaces with those things, it will work better if it shares the humanoid design.
To an extent. A humanoid form for domestic robots would seem useful but we see that a roomba does a pretty good job and it's nothing more than a flat disc. If you look at conversion kits to turn standard human-operated trucks into remote vehicles, they're admirably utilitarian with a set of stereoscoptic cameras mounted where a human head would go but with simple servo-operated levers for controlling the gas and brake and a neat little set of rubber gears for gripping and turning the steering wheel.
If we were to ever invent a general-purpose robot, one capable of doing many tasks, it might settle on a human form. Right now our robots tend to be more designed for the purpose. A roomba whirls around the room but does not lift furniture, does not have an attachment for getting between the cushions, etc. An automatic car wash is basically robotic and looks nothing like a human while doing the same work. They're usually worse at it than a human but all you'd need to fix that deficiency is mount some cameras so they can really see the job they're doing and have an articulated pressure washer and scrubber arm to get at the dirt that's not coming off. Computer vision systems are getting to the point where they really could identify clean and dirty with cars off the street. Previous example of computer vision system were like the ones the potato chip companies use to sort bad spuds and they check the incoming potatoes against a known list of acceptable potato colors.
There's a whole field of biomimicry that seeks to borrow nature's solutions for various engineering problems. While nature can develop some very interesting techniques, it's important to remember that the process is not guided and also has to work with the materials at hand. The common example given is wing-flapping flight. It's not very efficient but modifying limbs to flapping surfaces is about the best you can do. Same goes for terrestrial locomotion. Wheels are awesome but there's only one axle we've ever found in nature and it's on a microscopic organism. Anything bigger than that is pushing itself around with limbs.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Stuff looks really creepy because of the uncanny valley.
I do not want to buy stuff that looks really creepy, when I do not expect it to be. (Exception: Horror games/movies.)
I assume that this is true for nearly everybody.
If people don’t buy it, there is no profit in it.
If there is no profit in something, no company will produce it.
There’s how it matters.
Simple as that.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
That would be interesting in a situation where the robot (temporarily) replaces a human or the tools are special.
Plenty of ordinary tools come with changeable parts, like screwdrivers/drills or tools that can be used with high pressure air. Adding a sort of 'Swiss army knife' of popular connections to the robot is probably more efficient for the robot. Many tools are electronic anyway. Should robots become more obvious in daily life, it seems to me a robot would use its hand to plug its, say, USB cable in a device rather than using the interface for humans.
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
There is a reason why Pixar's characters have been so successful and why their characters are always caricatures.
A primary reason that humanity is so successful is because we are general-purpose, but also because we have the ability to use tools. Robots can be designed to cut out the middle man and become the tool itself, or they can be more general use and still require tools or swappable arms/interfaces.
So think about it, do humans REALLY interface with the items we build? If so, why are there eventually 2 versions of these created items: "standard" and "ergonomic"? It's because the standard ones never are actually designed for humans to a T, and ergonomic versions attempt to rectify it. Also, humans are so different from each other in terms of size and agility that most of our interfaces do not exactly match even the average human being. Robots don't have to suffer from this problem, although they surely will have to handle deviation in the environment.
Humanoid robots are potentially successful in certain areas like teaching--although Disney's "Crush" the Turtle exhibit seems to work quite well for a lot of people--but until we get to the point where biomimicry is successful to the point where robots are commonly sexualized (plausable acceptability), we may as well continue creating robots that are fitted to a smaller number of uses in specific niches.
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
He only briefly mentions the Polar Express movie that had a really big uncanny valley problem.
If you have seen the movie, you know what it is, it looks at once so real and at the same time is a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The two just don't match.
There is a reason movies like Madagascar, Wall-E, Up etc despite being drop dead gorgous use clear cartoony looks ESPECIALLY for their characters. And while it is acceptable for the plane in Madagascar 2 to bounce like cartoon plane because it is clear that no matter how accurately it is rendered it is NOT a real aircraft. But the train in Polar Express DOES look real and real trains do not behave like that.
It is the superman problem. Spiderman can swing from wall to wall because it slightly makes sense, sense enough perhaps. Superman being able to lift an Island doesn't. Stopping a train. That has nothing to do with strength anymore, but with conversion of energy. He may be strong enough, but we know the ground isn't.
The uncanny valley is NOT something not looking right, but us knowing that the real thing looks or behaves different. It is why walking is SO hard to do in any animation. Most animation showing walking has a problem with slipping, it looks immidiatly wrong to us.
A robot, and no robot so far looks anything like a real human, just doesn't look real enough to trigger the feeling that it is wrong.
The uncanny valley is not restricted to animation or future robots. Ordinary humans got it as well, watch someone with a glass eye or scarring that is not obvious anymore but still large. Burn victim with a lot of corrective surgery whose face is close but at the same time a million miles removed. A burn victim with just a huge nasty scar might be shocking, but that is soon passed, but that face that is almost normal but isn't, that gets the constant stares.
The uncanny valley is not a theory or a measurement, it is simply the observation that people accept a :) as a face but a 99% realistic rendering is instantly picked as fake NOT for missing a pixel but because the eyes are at an unnatural angle.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dude, while most people around here have heard of Lost In Space, most are too young to have actually watched the original TV series. Shame.
...Now, had you a humaniform robot you would have no need for a roomba, as the humaniform robot could operate your existing Hoover, as well as your dishwasher, lawnmower, etc.
You forgot guns ;)
Perhaps if evolution had given us wheels instead of legs, we'd be using ramps instead of stairs now.
And even more worrisome, human progress would have taken a great leap (!) forward when somebody invented the leg, way back in the Stone Age.
Dude, while most people around here have heard of Lost In Space, most are too young to have actually watched the original TV series. Shame.
Aw, it was only fifteen years ago that they showed it on Sci-Fi Channel... :)
That reminds me, I wanted to add "Noxious Nickel-plated Ninny" and "fallacious ferrous fool" to the list...
Bow-ties are cool.
Most of those are just Machines. Robots should have a bit of autonomousness about them.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
That there is clearly a robot with a head of a human looking doll.
It is not even trying to appear human - it is trying to appear like a doll.
So, we file it mentally under "D for doll" or "R for Robot" and ignore the uncannyness as we are just approaching the valley.
The valley actually starts to show with examples like this, and Repliee.
And here is where TFA falls on its uncanny ass:
If machines can trigger cognitive dissonance in the human brain, roboticists must continue to carefully tweak their creations, to avoid individual revulsion and even a society-wide blowback.
That would be a major concern for the designers and manufacturers of the coming generation of social robots.
It would be, if the uncanny didn't evaporate on contact.
A Hypothetical Chasm
David Hanson, a roboticist whose company, Hanson Robotics, specializes in ultra-realistic robotic heads, actively seeks out the uncanny.
He keeps the motors in his rubber-skinned faces noisy and overtly robotic, and sometimes presents these lifelike talking heads mounted on a stick.
And for better or worse, even the shock value of Hanson's buzzing, decapitated heads doesn't stick around for long.
"In my experience, people get used to the robots very quickly," Hanson says. "As in, within minutes."
It is really hard to argue with an article that so blindly ignores the very topic it is talking about.
Its not the robots (of any kind - humanoid or not) that fall into the valley. We KNOW robots.
They are just another version of all those mechanical puppets that have been around for centuries.
It is the human simulacrum that freaks us out.
A photo of a nearly perfect humanoid head freaks us out because it registers as a human head that is "not OK" in some way.
We "feel" that there is something wrong with it.
But as soon as it starts to whir and buzz and click and move rhythmically like a robot - our perspective changes and it is no longer "strange and alien and wrong".
It "becomes" a robot.
That is why the photos of those supposed robotic inhabitants of the valley are freaky, while people find CB2 to be "cuddly" in person.
Or why this one becomes increasingly freaky once the camera zooms in to show just the face.
Instantly, it is no longer a robotic mannequin we are looking at, but a dead human head - smiling.
Then, as the camera zooms out, and the robot starts to move and talk - it is once again a humanoid mannequin, a moving statue, a robot.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
1) write thin article for a dying rag
2) pimp it on slashdot
3) ????
4) Profit.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
We all want to own a slave. We all want to be able to say "get me a beer from the fridge" and have something that doesn't look like a fridge do it. Every time. With no back talk.
On the short income we get to actually keep.
Servants fit the bill nicely, but they've been priced out of the market.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Kinda hard to have a relationship with a Roomba....
I take it you've tried?
Like, a... physical... relationship? Owowowow brushes right up front owowowow no tubing owowow.
Just when I thought people who stick their bits in a regular vacuum cleaner couldn't be outdone for finding interesting ways to damage themselves.
But think, it's double the brain damage! First you get hit in the head with booze, then you drink the booze. Talk about efficiency!
Monstar L
Like anti-lock brakes? Or my car's Electronic Stability Program? How about deciding how much hot water to mix to achieve the optimal washing temp?
I think the GP's point is that many of our modern appliances have become more autonomous in order to better perform their tasks. They're certainly not self aware, but they're doing a lot more "thinking" than their forerunners.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Everything we have is designed to work with our humanoid bodies, so if we want to make a device that interfaces with those things, it will work better if it shares the humanoid design.
To an extent. A humanoid form for domestic robots would seem useful but we see that a roomba does a pretty good job and it's nothing more than a flat disc.
Exactly, it does -one- good job.
If someone breaks the android challenge, there's no need to redesign every aspect of human life with purpose-specific robots for every single job.
P.S. That logic was much better explained by Asimov, from whom I was convinced.
You can't take the sky from me...
Doctor? Try Agent. EPIC FAIL.
Thankss
why build several $5,000 domestic chore robots that need special tools when you can buy one $20,000 humanoid robot that does all of the shores, need no special tools to clean the toilets, do the dishes, and vacuum the floor except the cheap tools humans already use.
Hopefully, they'll also do the shopping for said tools and supplies and won't go all "no, no, you buy, I no go, you buy..."
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
A robot needs to do more than sit and place and perform a task (even if it is engineered to do it well). Such a loose definition does to the term "robots" what has been done to "cloud (computing)" and "nano (machines / structures)" that everyone wants to slap or back-date on their project to make it sound important / relevant.
As I see it, part of the definition of a robot includes movement. As with the roomba, it has the ability to move around to perform it's task and not be restricted to performing it's task in a single place (which would be a useless vacuum cleaner). In factories, robotic arms may stay mounted in place, but the arms themselves move themselves or parts to assemble cars.
Surely you aren't so naive as to think such robots don't already exist.
Fancy new cars are self-parallel-parking.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I think the phenomenon labeled Uncanny Valley is perfectly valid and perfectly irrelevant. At least, as long as it's framed solely in terms of appearance. It's trivially easy for people to relate to Wall-E. It doesn't matter in the slightest that he looks only very vaguely cubically humanoid. He could be, in the great Disney test of yesteryear, an animated flour sack. As long as he appears to express emotions, the machine instantly becomes "he" to us. (Or she, depending on the mannerisms.) A walking talking RealDoll will still be a creepy failure as long as it doesn't move right. A box with treads will succeed, as long as it can act human (or possibly canine).
In desktop computers, it's the software that's inadequate, as every attempt at game AI demonstrates. In robots, there are still a few things that are inadequate in the hardware, but truly it's still the software. Roombas have zero personality.
Slashdot carried the story about the little robot let loose in Central Park a while back. It was nothing but a bump and go car with a flag on it and a sign saying "help me get to point X" and people actually did help it. Now consider what would have happened if it had been a Wall-E bot. I'd bet money that if a little robot hunched down, tapped his manipulator tips together, tipped his cameras into a configuration vaguely reminiscent of a worried expression and shuffled his treads, and held up a sign asking for help to reach point X that someone would have literally stopped what they were doing, taken his hand, and led him the entire way there.
It's the personality, stupid. (To coin a phrase...)
With the exception of the niches/fetishes you mentioned yourself, the most immediate reason I can see for having such interest in a humanoid robot would be flexibility of function. We, as a race, have spent much of our existence working to modify our environment to fit our humanoid form factor. Doors, hallways, chairs, vehicles, tools, etc. are all designed to work, specifically, with the human body shape. One of the problems with mass adoption of non-humanoid robots for general tasks is that they require us to modify the environment with an infrastructure custom tailored to their capabilities. With a fully human-form robot, all the world is already designed to work with it and the rest is all software.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Heh, reminds me of the short story "Q.U.R." by Anthony Boucher. Humanoid robots becoming depressed and breaking down because they were only used for narrow, repetitive job functions.
At least one Asimov robot wasn't humaniform. The short story "Sally" had vehicles outfitted with positronic brains.
And is was down right creepy.
My car will unlock the doors if it thinks I'm in danger of locking myself out. When I first bought it I had a little fight with it. I pushed the lock button down. It popped it up. I pushed it down. it popped them all up.
Also if I unlock the doors and don't open a door within a certain time frame it will lock them again.
It has cruise control.
It has a thermostat similar to a house. You set the temp and it will try and keep it constant.
It has antilock brakes/traction control.
That's a bit of autonomousness[sic].
I find being offended by me offensive.
Machine gun jubblies? How'd I miss those, baby?
There hasn't been a remake recently? OK, give it six months.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If it's just been flung across the room and hit you in the head you aren't going to drink very much of it. Might be useful for putting out fires, though.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Main Entry: robot
Function: noun
Etymology: Czech, from robota compulsory labor; akin to Old High German arabeit trouble, Latin orbus orphaned — more at orphan
Date: 1923
1 a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized b : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically
2 : a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
3 : a mechanism guided by automatic controls
Definition 2 and 3 oriented robots exist for decades. Making machines that look human is an art still being perfected.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Until they got used to me, my local MosBurger used to look around for the guy who placed the order at the speaker when I drove up to the window. Took a second to get the kid to understand, "Yeah, that was me talking back there. That's my burger."
Then I came home to the States after a few years in Japan. The first day back, I met a middle-aged Asian-American woman who had spent her whole life in the South. She looked like Atsuko Asano. She sounded like Dolly Parton.
For the first couple of minutes, my brain just refused to put the picture and the sound together, and I had grown up in the States. I hope I wasn't too rude to her.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I've been saying it for a long time.
Instead of obsessing over getting human appearance right, they should just give it a human shape, and dress it in a fursuit.
And the agitator in my washing machine rotates. Does the movement have to be completely exposed to count as "robotic"?
I'm not trying to dilute the meaning of "robot" here, I just interpret it to mean "a machine capable of automatic function." My hammer is a tool, my drill is a machine, my clothes washer - strange though it may seem - is a robot.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
I'm not trying to dilute the meaning of "robot" here,
... but you'll do it anyway?
Why design it like a human? Because everything that you or I do is done with devices that were... designed for humans.
/how much/ useful stuff you want to do.
Stairs: Designed for humans
Doorway size: humans
Chairs: Humans
Desks: Humans
The list goes on. Everything from your car to your dishwasher was designed so that it could be operated by you, not by a purpose-built robot. Thus, when you want a multi-purpose robot you want a robot designed like a human. These robots are the "personal assistant" robots. They do (or will in the future) your dishes, make dinner, take your car to the shop, etc.
On the other hand, if you want a robot to do one specific thing, like weld car chassis, then you want to design the robot differently to be the most efficient at doing that one specific thing.
Yes, your humanoid robot is less efficient at loading your dishwasher than a purpose-built dishwashing robot would be, but that dishwashing robot can't also go drive your car to the shop. The robot that only drives your car can't do anything else because it's part of the car itself.
So when you say that you wouldn't start with a human form when you want to get useful stuff done you really have to evaluate what exactly you call "useful stuff" and decide just
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
A robot doesn't involve movement, you're putting that into your definition because you think that robots have to be cool or look like they accomplish some complicated task or think that robots have to all be useful. Robots involve actuation. A robot without actuation is called a computer. Actuation involves more than movement, it's doing anything physical. Turning on a heating element, turning on a pump (technically there's movement inside the pump I guess, but that's not the point), etc.
Yes, your coffee maker is a robot. It's not a cool robot, it's not fascinating to watch, and it doesn't do very much, but none of these things have to do with he definition of a robot. It does what it does autonomously and it involves actuation. (It heats the coffee then pumps it through the coffee grounds). It turns on the warmer below the pot when it gets cold, etc.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
He's not diluting the term at all.
People watch too much television and get this idea in their heads that "robots" are these amazing high-tech devices that resemble the terminator. They expect a robot to be awesome. Yes, your washing machine is a robot. Go look up the definition of a robot and you'll see that a washing machine meets those criteria.
Robots aren't all exciting, get over it.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Because the standard tool works alright and the ergonomic tool is some dipshit changing something inconsequential and marking it up another $50.
Seriously though, yes, humans are multi-purpose. Yes, we really interface with the items we build. There are such a huge number of humans and we're all a little different so of course one tool will not work for every single human on the face of the planet. That's really a non-issue though because any robot designed to perform human tasks with human tools will be designed to use these human tools regardless of how different the robots are from one another. No one is going to make a toilet cleaning robot and design it such that it can't use a toilet brush.
Furthermore, it's a matter of money and convenience as well. Yeah, you could have one humanoid robot that's somewhat inefficient at all tasks. The more specialized you make a robot the more efficient it becomes and the more robots you need (to do the tasks that the others can't do). Every specialized robot is going to cost roughly the amount of a humanoid robot because they all need their own electronics. Their own batteries, motors, controllers, etc. You can't save money here because every robot has to be as intelligent as a humanoid to properly interact with humans as it would and to navigate the house properly.
You have 5 times the amount of shit to break down, 5 times the amount of regular maintenance, 5 times the number of old batteries to recycle, 5 times the amount of space taken up.
You actually gain NOTHING by having the robot be more efficient. The robot will conserve a little more power, but remember that charging is inherently somewhat inefficient. You are now charging 5 robots instead of one. Any money you save in efficiency you again lose in the inefficiency of charging.
And then there's the fact that I now have to buy specialized tools for all these things. Can't use a standard toilet brush because that's "inefficient". I have to spend a lot more money on one that this robot can use. What's more, if my toilet cleaning robot breaks down I can't clean the toilet myself because the tool is designed for the robot.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Sounds like a recipe for awesome if you ask me.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
It's lazy thinking, that.
If you want your floor vacuumed by your humanoid robot then you'll also need to buy him a vacuum cleaner with which to do it. Considering the low cost of computer equipment now, why not just jam a tiny electronic brain in the vacuum which you'll have to buy either way?
Same goes for most things. Why buy one car and one humanoid robotic chauffeur when you could just buy the car (which you have to buy either way) and stick a computer and a couple of sensors in it? Why have a shed full of gardening equipment and an android gardener when you could just bundle all your already-required tools into a handy automated bundle?
And that's not all of it. The idea of having a machine going around and controlling other machines by way of buttons and leavers it quaint- why wouldn't all of these devices just network with each other? Why have an android turn the steering wheel and push the pedals on a car (and designing it with hands and feet for just this purpose) when it could just connect (wirelessly perhaps) and order the car what to do? Why would it even need to be there to do that?
Far more sensible to have your big "house" computer nestled away somewhere, controlling all your devices for you over the airwaves. Like HAL, only with less psychopathy.
Uncanny valley doesn't matter. Anime/manga/vn heroines are so much better, how could one possibly settle for real girl?
I certainly wouldn't start with a humanoid layout
It does give a robot instant access to all of our tools, modes of transportation, and infrastructure. Robots that are backwards compatible with their makers.
It's lazy thinking, that.
If you want your floor vacuumed by your humanoid robot then you'll also need to buy him a vacuum cleaner with which to do it.
Because when you already have a vacuum cleaner, and a mop, and a broom, and a shed full or gardening equipement, you only need to buy a robot.
If you robotize everything, you need a new everything.
You can't take the sky from me...
Who says that my robot sex-slave isn't getting something useful done for me?
Depends. Eventually, I can see everything being robotized. (And they already have public self cleaning toilets that don't use the standard toilet brush.) A good interim / cheap step is a humanoid robot, and once everything is robotized you'll probably have one humanoid anyway to do maintenance on stuff, with a butler's pantry to do maintenance on itself. A lot of devices - like the bathroom cleaning bot - would simply be plugged in. The car-bot would run off of whatever energy is already being produced for the car. Some things would need to be autonomous, but probably not that many. For a lot of things, you'd have to have a semi-expensive device anyway, so robotizing it wouldn't be THAT much more expensive. *SHRUG* We're a ways away from it anyway. We can't even get a "smart" home to work right. But I look forward to the commute-bot 3000, the chores-bot 2200, which, with the separate personality plugin could also be your personal secretary bot 2300. Yeah, there'll be plugins for those other bedroom needs eventually as well, and they'll have the same social stigma, for a while at least, as the blowup dolls do now. Least if it can do all the other stuff it should be self cleaning.
there's no Uncanny Valley for Roombas.
Well yes, you've answered your question. Obviously people only talk about humanoid robots when talking about the uncanny valley, because it doesn't apply to the non-humanoid ones! However, plenty of non-humanoid ones do exist. I don't think anyone's claiming all robots must be humanoid - just that some of them will be, and it's interesting to look at the uncanny valley issue.
But then we have washing machines. We have lost the ability to do whatever we did to wash clothes before washing machines (I have no idea) and there is no going back. I think if humanoid robots were available they would have morphed into modern washing machines anyway.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It's not that hard.
First think hard: Do I want my dog to know how to open the refrigerator door? (Is your dog a lab? Is there food in 'fridge?)
If the answer is yes, tie a towel to your fridge door. The dog will figure it out on his own.
Once he knows how to open the door with the towel switch to a smaller towel, then smaller etc.
At the end of the process the dog will have figured out how to open the door with his paw.
You can then teach him how to fetch beers using conventional training techniques.
Don't reward him with beer and don't buy can beer.
You shouldn't be drinking canned piss anyhow but obviously your dog will have a harder time getting beer out of bottles (for himself).
Labs will eat everything in the refrigerator. Including the plastic parts of shelves.
Don't do it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
An automatic car wash is basically robotic and looks nothing like a human while doing the same work. They're usually worse at it than a human
Thats funny because last time I was in Malaysia we borrowed a car from a relative and went to get it washed before we returned it. We found an automatic car wash (the outside of it anyway) with eight (count'em) Indonesian guys inside hand washing cars.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Or why does C3PO need a hand held two way radio to talk to R2D2?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
But why not just build the fridge into the robot? Or perhaps some sort of beer cannon?
I think you should submit that idea to mythbusters.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sincere apologies for the double reply but I just read the end of your fine post.
Far more sensible to have your big "house" computer nestled away somewhere, controlling all your devices for you over the airwaves. Like HAL, only with less psychopathy.
The psychopathy will come in when my wife programs HAL to ensure the toilet seat is down, serve extra vegetables at dinner, block pornographic web sites and hide the software change from me.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It is much harder (more expensive) to program a humanoid robot to do everything, than it is to program a specialized robot to do one thing. So no, a humanoid robot would not be a cheap interim step. A cool novelty item perhaps, but not inexpensive.
Why does everyone seem to think a humanoid robot would be such a great solution?
Manifold reasons (not necessarily good ones, but that's humanity for ya):
1) Top of the list of many, for better or worse, is the concept of robot sex slaves. The idea of creating and more importantly commanding a customized analogue of a person's physical ideal. Your dishwasher can't measure up.
2) The sheer challenge of the task, aka 'because it's there', is enticing to overachieving designers/engineers out for fame, glory, and a lasting legacy.
3) Oddly enough, the desire to have progeny would be touched by a convincing humaniform creation, and designers may consider them analogues to children.
Besides of course previously mentioned commercial applications. It has also been mentioned elsewhere in responses to this topic that humaniform robots are able to take advantage of all the tools and other machines already designed for intended use by people. This actually decreases the cost of building those tools into the robot itself (or designing custom ones for a different interface) and makes the robot versatile in being able to replace humans without any change to process, procedure, equipment, etc.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I appreciate your opening cynicism.
My point was that we have a crude interface to our environment due to our relative lack of specialization. We can't do a whole lot of anything without a tool (or a serious investment in training) to help us do it. No wings to fly up mountains, or claws/padded feet to climb them, but we can build helicopters and wear shoes.
A robot with the ability to adapt at even a much less advanced rate would surely be more complicated and more difficult to maintain than a Roomba. I completely disagree with you in that I think the point at which the number of robots to maintain becomes less manageable than a single many-purpose humanoid robot is much higher than you do. I think it's closer to 500 simultaneous robots, but you'll need to change your mind about what a robot is. Batteries are interchangeable, you can go to a commodity mechanic to fix basic parts, rather than visiting an expensive software technician/robot doctor, and people will find space for everything else in their houses, I'm sure robots will be ok too.
You're over-thinking what a robot has to be. A Roomba can interact with its environment enough to know when something is in the way, and it's dumber than a hamster in a ball. The toilet cleaning robot could be as simple as a mechanical arm that brushes the bowl after you flush (Japanese toilets have these) or even just a chemical rinse dispenser. Dishwashers, doorbells, elevators, and security systems are all examples of relatively stupid, inexpensive robots that are specialized at their job and have no need for intelligence. That's the whole point of robotics: do things humans don't want to do. Who cares how intelligent it is at this point?
We'll never have more advanced, humanoid robots (which I would love to have) until we can get a handle around programming the less advanced ones.
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
No, not completely exposed, but it does have to be able to make a decision on which way to go based on the state of it's environment and not just by a mechanical device.
As soon as there's a washing machine that you just put clothes into and walk away and it decides what kind/color and automatically sets the temp and adds the soap and washes then checks to make sure it is all clean before letting you know I wont call a washing machine a robot.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Actuation only represents a tool or machine not a robot. A robot has to be able to read it's environment and make a decision based on it. A hammer is not a robot, nether is an electric drill. A toaster may be the closest thing to a robot you can get from a very basic mechanical setup.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Before the machines they used scrub boards in a washtub. It's a flat board with ripples in it, you scrub the wet clothes against it. Then the clothes were hand wrung and hung dry, or they had mechanical crank "wringers" to get the extra water out. (I still own this stuff as backup, and yes, have used them enough to get fair at it). I also have one of these things as a further, more modern biodrive backup washing machine. Does small loads, but it does work.
Anyway, check that whole catalog/site out, tons of neat "no electricity required" gadgets, including a more full size hand cranked washing machine.
I have experienced the Uncanny Valley but not necessarily in a bad way. At the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum the artist, Ron Mueck, for the first set of the sculptures here: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/11/mind-blowing-hyperrealistic-sculptures/ was on display and it was mind blowing. The woman in the bed made you feel 4 years old again because of the size - she's huge - like 10x normal - but perfect in detail. The skin has individual hair follicles, the eyes are moist looking, fingernails are slightly translucent - amazing detail. The two old woman are also perfect - but at 1/2 size normal I couldn't help be stare, up close my sense of perception was skewed and I started to imagine them moving, like you do with dead people (my families catholic, so I've got to stare at all kinds of dead ppl)
Highly recommended if you can catch up to one of his shows.
There were a lot more than that.
I think you've missed the point of a lot of the stories.
The settlers had robots too, but they were all of the Roomba variety. The spacers had the humanoid equivalents. It's far more efficient to build a car that drives itself than to have a normal car and a humanoid robot. The spacer robots filled a slave fetish.
keyser soze!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's a good thing they have the first law of robo... oh oh!
Free Martian Whores!