Letters to the Editor
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*shrugs*
I really can't see what's freaking you out here. No, it doesn't look like a real kid, but it's a robot. I wouldn't expect it to look like a real kid; I'd expect it to look like a mechanical representation of one.
The day they make a robot that can't be told from a human being - that day, I'll get freaked out. But these approximate simulacra don't bother me at all.
Some 25 years ago, I read an essay in Time Magazine about the Japanese and their efforts to create realistic robots. The writer, whose name I cannot recall, wrote about the fact that in Japanese culture there is no Frankenstein myth, no story about the awful dangers of trying to create a human or human analog. So because their culture does not contain the emotional/psychological baggage we drag around on this subject, they have no qualms about artificial humans, and no reason to find them "freaky" or "disgusting." Their roboticists find the concept fascinating and a chance to display real creativity, and perhaps create beauty. (Accompanying that essay was a photograph of a very beautiful robot, created to look like a geisha. Very primitive compared to CB2, in that she did not react to the world at all, but just made a few pre-programmed movements. But the point was well taken that this could become not only a science, but also an art form.)
It's a pity our culture can't relate to that way of thinking. Some of our prejudices are awfully silly, and cut us off from really interesting stuff.
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robot love
You can't count the number of Japanese anime where the love interest is some kind of female robot. Inevitably drawn to appear more beautiful than any human.
No doubt life will imitate art as soon as they can pull it off.
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Child Robot
I think it's cute.
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But Serai1, think of it this way
Humans faces evolved to express feelings, but robots have no feelings to express. So these creatures amount to a mockery of humanity. That is an excellent reason to find them frightening.
Human beings who feel no empathy are called sociopaths. So robots with human faces are almost sociopaths by design.
They are also slaves. They are designed to be enslaved. They are designed to be bought and sold like microwave ovens.
Do we want objects that are designed to be bought and sold and used like slaves to look credibly human? Does that reflect positively on our humanity?
You think it's a pity that our silly culture isn't open to this wonderful new cool thing.
I feel the other way -- I find it downright scary that you and the Japanese are open to this, without considering the cultural, social and emotional ramifications of building commodified commercial objects that simulate real people.
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Robot Baby takes Tokyo
This clip's a bit creepier, made my hands sweat and the hair stand up on my arms...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrQkuMNmaqk
It's probably just the body language, setting off some "wrongness" signals, since it's moving, but not quite right, kinda herky-jerky. I bet they'll be creepier the smoother they move.
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@Anonymous
Wow, my point really flew over your head there, didn't it?
The source of the misgivings you expressed - i.e., creating artificial life is bad because it messes with the natural order, created life would be oppressed and have no rights, etc. - is the very Frankenstein myth I mentioned, and its equivalents in European cultures. The whole point I tried to express there is that other cultures do not necessarily think the way we do, and are no less interesting or viable because they think differently. Dismissing another culture's outlook because it doesn't agree with yours, regardless of whether their point of view actually has merit or not, is at best, xenophobia.
What I find strange here is the fact that we're talking about machines. The only way in which they resemble humans is physically. I could carve a potato into the likeness of a human; that wouldn't make it one, nor would it give the benighted vegetable any human "rights". Robots are mechanical devices, and Manjoo's post does point out that if these things didn't look like humans, there'd be no problem. Physical appearance, the aspect of a machine least likely to weigh in its actual performance, creates a dynamic that hinders its development along its creator's desired lines. Given that it's purely physical appearance we're talking about - that the machines are neither less nor more like humans in any other aspect - why shouldn't the Japanese try to make machines that look like us? Given that these are not sentient beings with minds, hearts, etc., what reason can there be, other than our Shelley-derived reaction of distrust and loathing?
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Serai1
Since you chose to insult my intelligence instead of just responding to me point by point, I'm not going to respond to you other than to say that your attempt to wound my pride suggests that I'm right about robots, sociopathy, empathy and humanism.
I mean look -- your very first instinct was to write something mean and cruel that you believed would hurt me.
Isn't that right? Didn't you intend for that comment to be hurtful?
I rest my case.
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??
Excuse me, but the point did go over your head, as you proved with your comment. Am I supposed to ignore that?
You have equally proved my point about not listening to other people, and assuming your view of something is necessarily the right one. If your pride is wounded, that's your own lookout. You just made a valiant attempt to make me feel bad and surprise! It didn't work. If you're going to engage others on the web, I'd suggest not taking everything so damn seriously next time.
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Already at each other's throats.
See what this child robot is already doing to us??
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kind of sad, but not scary...
The robot looks an awful lot to me like a profoundly developmentally-disabled child, actually (I used to teach in a school for such children). But not inhuman.
The comments on the YouTube page are what really frighten me.
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4 foot baby?
It is very disconcerting to see a 70 pound 4 foot anything writhing around like a baby.
The Japanese should spend some time making themselves appear more human first, then move on to the robots. What is the term for the point at which human cultures mimic human characteristics, but do not quite succeed, thus they become revolting to the rest of us?
Very funny article, I was laughing through the horror.