In lieu of taking a break from revisions on an article that is slowly killing me, I thought I would offer up some observations from the world of robots, fact and fiction (well, really, which is which at this point?).
The first is a fascinating clip of "Roboman," the robot twin of the Japanese scientist who created him--note how near the end of the report it is stated that Ishiguru feels that such beings might be used to study human behavior--interesting stuff!
The second article, which I happened across just the other day, is entitled "Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren". I think the following quote, which I actually find quite moving, speaks for itself:
"One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put "Scooby-Doo" back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo."
And for anyone who would immediately dismiss this as "twaddle", I would urge him or her to think of some piece of machinery that has impacted his or her life in such a way that made the device seem animate. For me, the list might be quite long, starting with, of course, Speak'N'Spell.
And lastly, in order to tie up the threads of this human/machine emotional connection theme, I give you a clip of an early first season "Twilight Zone" episode (no, not the lame-o 80s Twilight Zone but the actual original late 50s series) called "The Lonely," in which a man who has been wrongly convicted of a crime is banished to a distant planet with only "Alicia," his human-on-the-outside, robot-on-the-inside companion, to keep him company. At first he is completely repelled by her and her audacity in looking like a human but being a machine, but eventually the two form a strong bond (to the point that he refuses to leave the planet without her and will not accept that she is, after all, a mere robot). Despite TZ actors' apparent inability to properly pronounce the word "robot," I actually found this episode to coincide somewhat with a theory a student introduced me to last semester--the "uncanney valley" concept.
Hello world!
5 years ago
1 comment:
Pretty cool robot video! Sort of creepy how it blinks. After seeing the latest "Terminator" I feel a bit guilty calling the robot an "it" instead of "he" or "him." I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the "Twilight Zone" yet because I fear that as much as spiders and dentists. I think my parents exposed me to that kind of stuff when I was way too young for it!
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