Uncanny valley

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's lifelikeness. It was introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970, and has been linked to Ernst Jentsch's concept of "the uncanny" identified in a 1906 essay, "On the Psychology of the Uncanny". Jentsch's conception is famously elaborated upon by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay, simply entitled "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche"). A similar problem exists in realistic 3D computer animation, such as with the film "The Polar Express" [ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/when-fantasy-is-just-too-close-for-comfort/2007/06/09/1181089394400.html?page=fullpage When fantasy is just too close for comfort] - "The Age", June 10, 2007] and "Beowulf".

Transhumanism

According to writer Jamais Cascio, a similar "uncanny valley" effect could show up when humans begin modifying themselves with transhuman enhancements (cf. body modification), which aim to improve the abilities of the human body beyond what would normally be possible, be it eyesight, muscle strength, or cognition. So long as these enhancements remain within a perceived norm of human behavior, a negative reaction is unlikely, but once individuals supplant normal human variety, revulsion can be expected. However, according to this theory, once such technologies gain further distance from human norms, "transhuman" individuals would cease to be judged on human levels and instead be regarded as separate entities altogether (this point is what has been dubbed "posthuman"), and it is here that acceptance would rise once again out of the uncanny valley. [Jamais Cascio, [http://www.openthefuture.com/2007/10/the_second_uncanny_valley.html The Second Uncanny Valley] ]

Criticism

Some roboticists have heavily criticized the theory, arguing that Mori had no basis for the rightmost part of his chart, as human-like robots have only recently become technically possible. David Hanson, a roboticist who developed a realistic robotic copy of his girlfriend's head, said that the idea of the uncanny valley is "really pseudoscientific, but people treat it like it is science." [ [http://iiae.utdallas.edu/news/pop_science.html The Man Who Mistook His Girlfriend for a Robot] , "Popular Science"] [ [http://www.haftamag.com/2006/07/31/uncanny-valley/ Uncanny Valley | Hafta Magazine ] ] Sara Kiesler, a human-robot interaction researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, questioned uncanny valley's scientific status, stating, "We have evidence that it's true, and evidence that it's not." [ [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/c0c80b4511b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd/6.html The Man Who Mistook His Girlfriend for a Robot] , "Popular Science"] Roboticist Dario Floreano stated that uncanny valley is not based on scientific evidence, but is taken seriously by the film industry due to negative audience reactions to the animated baby in Pixar's 1988 short film "Tin Toy". [Dario Floreano. [http://moodle.epfl.ch/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=41111 Bio-Mimetic Robotics] ] [EPFL. [http://moodle.epfl.ch/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=41121] ] Christoph Bartneck pointed out that the cultural background of the users might have a considerable influence on how androids are being perceived, including their perception of the uncanny valley. [Bartneck, C., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., & Hagita, N. (2007). Is the Uncanny Valley an Uncanny Cliff? Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2007, Jeju, Korea pp. 368-373. | DOI: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2007.4415111 10.1109/ROMAN.2007.4415111] ] [Bartneck, C. (2008). Who like androids more: Japanese or US Americans? Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2008, München pp. 553-557. [http://www.bartneck.de/publications/2008/whoLikesAndroids/ view html] ]

Popular culture

* In the "30 Rock" episode "Succession", Frank Rossitano explains the uncanny valley concept, using a graph and "Star Wars" examples, to try to convince Tracy Jordan that his dream of creating a pornographic video game is impossible.

ee also

*Android science
*Bunraku
*Frankenstein complex
*Gynoid
*Virtual Woman
*Affective computing

Notes

References

* Mori, Masahiro (1970). Bukimi no tani [http://www.androidscience.com/theuncannyvalley/proceedings2005/uncannyvalley.html The uncanny valley] (K. F. MacDorman & T. Minato, Trans.). "Energy, 7"(4), 33–35. (Originally in Japanese)
* Mori, Masahiro (2005). [http://www.androidscience.com/theuncannyvalley/proceedings2005/MoriMasahiro22August2005.html On the Uncanny Valley] . [http://www.theuncannyvalley.org "Proceedings of the Humanoids-2005 workshop: Views of the Uncanny Valley"] . 5 December 2005, Tsukuba, Japan.
* Bartneck, C., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., & Hagita, N. (2007). Is the Uncanny Valley an Uncanny Cliff? Proceedings of the 16th IEEE, RO-MAN 2007, Jeju, Korea, pp. 368-373. DOI: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2007.4415111 10.1109/ROMAN.2007.4415111] [http://www.bartneck.de/publications/2007/uncannyCliff/index.html html]
* [http://www.macdorman.com MacDorman, Karl F.] (2005). [http://www.androidscience.com/proceedings2005/MacDormanCogSci2005AS.pdf Androids as an experimental apparatus: Why is there an uncanny valley and can we exploit it?] [http://www.androidscience.com "CogSci-2005 Workshop: Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science"] , 106-118. (An English translation of Mori's "The Uncanny Valley" made by Karl MacDorman and Takashi Minato appears in Appendix B of the paper.)
* [http://www.macdorman.com MacDorman, Karl F.] & [http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/ Ishiguro, H.] (2006). [http://www.macdorman.com/kfm/writings/pubs/MacDorman2006AndroidScience.pdf The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive science research.] "Interaction Studies, 7"(3), 297-337.
* [http://www.macdorman.com MacDorman, K. F.] (2006). [http://www.macdorman.com/kfm/writings/pubs/MacDorman2006SubjectiveRatings.pdf Subjective ratings of robot video clips for human likeness, familiarity, and eeriness: An exploration of the uncanny valley.] ICCS/CogSci-2006 Long Symposium: Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science. July 26 2006. Vancouver, Canada.
* Ho, C.-C., [http://www.macdorman.com MacDorman, K. F.] , & Pramono, Z. A. D. (2008). [http://www.macdorman.com/kfm/writings/pubs/Ho2007EmotionUncanny.pdf Human emotion and the uncanny valley: A GLM, MDS, and ISOMAP analysis of robot video ratings.] Proceedings of the Third ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. March 11-14. Amsterdam.
* Green, R. D., [http://www.macdorman.com MacDorman, K. F.] , Ho, C.-C., & Vasudevan, S. K. (2008). [http://www.macdorman.com/kfm/writings/pubs/Green2008CHBsensitivity.pdf Sensitivity to the proportions of faces that vary in human likeness] . [http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/759/description#description Computers in Human Behavior] .
* [http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/ H. Ishiguro] . (2005). [http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/research/paper/AndroidScience_jp.pdf Android science: Toward a new cross-disciplinary framework] . CogSci-2005 Workshop: Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science, 2005, pp. 1–6.
* [http://www.jgcarpenter.com Carpenter, J.] , Eliot, M. & Schultheis, D. (2006). [http://www.jgcarpenter.com/cv.php The Uncanny Valley: Making human-nonhuman distinctions] . Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Cognitive Science, 81-82.Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
* [http://www.jgcarpenter.com Carpenter, J.] , Eliot, M. & Schultheis, D. (2006). [http://www.jgcarpenter.com/cv.php Machine or friend: understanding users’ preferences for and expectations of a humanoid robot companion] . Proceedings of 5th conference on Design and Emotion, CD-ROM. Gothenburg, Sweden.
* [http://www.ieee.org IEEE] -RAS [http://www.humanoidrobots.org/humanoids2005/ Humanoids-2005 Workshop:] [http://www.theuncannyvalley.org Views on the Uncanny Valley] . Was held in Tsukuba, Japan, near Tokyo on December 5 2005.
* [http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html The Uncanny Valley] (Dave Bryant)
* [http://www.livejournal.com/users/uncanny_valley Almost too human and lifelike for comfort] - research journal for an uncanny valley PhD project
* [http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/research/Android/BehavAppear/BehavAppear_eng.htm Relation between motion and appearance] is communication between androids and humans
* [http://199.246.67.28/exnmedia/exn20050324-android.asf Android Science video] , the Discovery Channel, 24 March 2005, discusses android science, the uncanny valley and features an Actroid.
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/face_pr.html Wired article: "Why is this man smiling?", June 2002.]
* [http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/2004/12/polar-express-virtual-train-wreck.html The Polar Express: A Virtual Train Wreck, Part 1] - Animation Director [http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/ Ward Jenkins] discusses in length about the use of motion capture in the film. In [http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/2004/12/polar-express-virtual-train-wreck_18.html Part 2] , he tries to "fix" the uncanny valley problem by using Photoshop to tweak some of the characters in the film.