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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The "Uncanny Valley" of Creepy Robots


Way back in 1978, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined a term that loosely translates into "Uncanny Valley" to describe the sudden drop in, let's say, "cuteness" that human perception of robots undergoes as the form of the robot approaches the form of the human. In other words: If you want to build a robot that everybody loves, either make it look perfectly human or else make it look mechanical. Don't make it look "almost human except..." or you'll creep people out and they'll run away screaming as they did from "The Polar Express."

While not all psychologists, roboticists and moviemakers agree with Mori's study, I have given it some serious thought and believe the following robot photos will illustrate the curve more graphically:

Really Cute
















Cute










Not Very Cute









Scary











Really Scary











Really, Really Cute
















Quod erat demonstrandum.



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