The uncanny valley

     During class this last Monday, we started the discussion about the "uncanny valley" and covered several examples as well. Firstly, the uncanny valley is described as an uncomfortable feeling that one gets when something (such as a robot) resembles a human being but is not close enough to fully pass as one. Such an example would be the robots in the videos shown in class, which looked fairly human, but their actions and motions were easily labeled as robotic. Another example would be Toshiba's Aiko Chihira, an android given the job of being a receptionist in a department store in Tokyo. In Aiko's case, several customers of the department store admitted that they believed she was human when they first saw her, but that is not the case for most of the humanoid androids out there. As seen in the graph in class, with the x-axis ranging from no resemblance to humans to complete resemblance and the y-axis going from being disliked to being liked, there lies in a dip at around the 80% mark on human resemblance. This gray area of things being human-like but distant enough from it is where the uncanny valley phenomenon occurs. Things that fall into the category of the uncanny valley are usually very unsettling, such as the video of the singing android, Tara, in "I feel fantastic".
     From this discussion of humanoid androids, we stemmed into talking about the Turing Test; a test which proposes that if someone can not tell if a robot is human when interacting with it, then it should be treated as human. For most of the examples given in class, none of the androids would have passed the Turing Test. However, technology is getting closer and closer to producing androids that could potentially be confused for being human, and therefore pass the Turing Test. Media and television shows have featured plots thats revolve around the uncanny valley phenomenon, like in the movie Ex Machina, or the episode of Black Mirror shown in class on Wednesday, "Be Right Back". Big steps have already been made in incorporating androids into society. A prime example being Sophia, an android manufactured by Hanson Robotics, who is the first robot to be given a citizenship.
     As scientists and engineers continue to work on moving away from the uncanny valley, the more progress is made and the more frequent these advanced, humanoid robots are found in our society. We could potentially be moving toward a future where androids are as commonplace as our smartphones, but with citizenships and rights of their own.

Aiko Chihira
"I feel fantastic"