Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you? And it's time for a
Speaker 1: text Stuff Tadbits episode. I hope you're ready for another
Speaker 1: spooky edition of tech Stuff for those of you listening
Speaker 1: from the future. I've been doing a few tangentially spooky
Speaker 1: episodes for the month of October and two thousand twenty two,
Speaker 1: and today I thought we would talk about the concept
Speaker 1: of the Uncanny Valley, and we're gonna look at sort
Speaker 1: of the hypothesis of the Uncanny Valley, as well as
Speaker 1: some criticisms and counter arguments related to the idea. Not
Speaker 1: that the uncanny isn't something that we experience, at least
Speaker 1: that feeling of uneasiness we experience when we encounter something
Speaker 1: that's said to be in the Uncanny Valley, but rather
Speaker 1: the actual concept of the valley itself, whether or not
Speaker 1: that's a valid idea. Before we can do any of that,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about what the uncanny Valley is,
Speaker 1: or what it's supposed to be, at least in general terms.
Speaker 1: The phrase comes from roboticist Massa Hiro Mori. He has
Speaker 1: made numerous contributions in the fields of robotics and in
Speaker 1: human robot interactions and responses, including human emotional response to robots,
Speaker 1: which is really what happens when you get to the
Speaker 1: heart of Uncanny Valley. So way back in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: More penned an article for a Japanese journal called Energy,
Speaker 1: and it was in this article that we got the
Speaker 1: phrase uncanny Valley. So Maury's observation was this, robots tend
Speaker 1: to get more appealing as they start to look more
Speaker 1: human like, but only up to a certain point. Once
Speaker 1: you go past that point, they become incredibly unappealing. You know.
Speaker 1: It could be to the point where it's not just
Speaker 1: that you have no emotional response, but you have a
Speaker 1: negative emotional response upon encountering the robot. It becomes creepy
Speaker 1: and disturbing. We have entire horror movies that are based
Speaker 1: off this. A very current example is the film Meagan
Speaker 1: m Three g a n You may have seen the
Speaker 1: trailer or maybe an animated gift from it where you
Speaker 1: see a child sized robot like it looks like a
Speaker 1: robot little girl, but with artificial eyes doing this this
Speaker 1: dance in a hallway, and a lot of people have
Speaker 1: talked about how it's kind of nightmare inducing. That plays
Speaker 1: on this concept of uncanny vale that when you reach
Speaker 1: a level that looks pretty human but at the same
Speaker 1: time as distinctly not human. There's something about it that
Speaker 1: is very much not human, and that's when it really
Speaker 1: turns you off. And then as you get closer to
Speaker 1: human again, once you get past this point, the emotional
Speaker 1: response improves. So in other words, you've got this continuum
Speaker 1: from not human at all, which is usually matched with
Speaker 1: little to no emotional response, to gradually becoming more and
Speaker 1: more human like with an improved emotional response, to getting
Speaker 1: almost but not quite humanlike, where you have a plunge
Speaker 1: in the emotional response, and then you get past this
Speaker 1: point and you get to the improvement again. So this
Speaker 1: is that that dip there, that's the uncanny valley. It's
Speaker 1: when robots appear to be strange and unsettling or uncanny
Speaker 1: as it were. Uh. This concept, of course extends beyond robotics.
Speaker 1: We also use it for stuff like computer generated characters.
Speaker 1: Remember way back in two thousand four with the film
Speaker 1: The Polar Express came out. If you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: the Polar Express, it's a computer animated film. Tom Hanks
Speaker 1: did the voice for it and has a character that
Speaker 1: looks like a creepy version of Tom Hanks in it,
Speaker 1: and the animators used live action references, including motion capture
Speaker 1: performances to kind of serve as the underlying animation for
Speaker 1: the characters in the film. Several reviewers praised the story,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them both positive and negative reviews,
Speaker 1: commented that the human characters in the film seemed off
Speaker 1: and a little bit creepy as a result, that it
Speaker 1: was kind of unsettling, especially to see their eyes move
Speaker 1: now right away with this approach to an uncanny valley idea,
Speaker 1: there is a bit of a problem of this general definition,
Speaker 1: and that's the fact that, you know, robots or computer
Speaker 1: generated characters appearances aren't really designed to be on a
Speaker 1: gradient like this, Like that was not necessarily the prime consideration.
Speaker 1: So if all artificial constructs, like if all computer animated
Speaker 1: characters and all robots ultimately were meant to have an
Speaker 1: appearance that was indistinguishable from a human or at least
Speaker 1: to look human, with you know, that being the end
Speaker 1: goal is to make it so that you couldn't tell
Speaker 1: the difference between artificial and real. Then we would have
Speaker 1: a pretty good basis for our thesis about the Uncanny Valley, right,
Speaker 1: because you would have this purposeful gradient there. But instead,
Speaker 1: you know, there are robots that are never meant to
Speaker 1: look human in appearance. That was never a consideration because
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessary for what the job that the robot
Speaker 1: was going to do. So it's a non factor. Right.
Speaker 1: The robots were designed to do something like to solve
Speaker 1: some sort of problem or to do some sort of task,
Speaker 1: and unless that happens to include to the the requirement
Speaker 1: to look like a human at the same time, there's
Speaker 1: no reason to make that part of the design process. Heck,
Speaker 1: we've seen this with various robot designs recently, where a
Speaker 1: lot of companies were looking at using robots with wheels
Speaker 1: instead of robots with legs, because legs are way more
Speaker 1: complicated to work out than wheels. You know, being able
Speaker 1: to make sure that the robot can balance and can
Speaker 1: move around without falling over these are non trivial challenges.
Speaker 1: So if there's no reason for the robot to have
Speaker 1: those those features, you tell build it into the robot. Right,
Speaker 1: If the robot doesn't need to move around at all,
Speaker 1: then it doesn't have legs or wheels or anything. It's stationary.
Speaker 1: So you know, a robot that's meant to quickly weld
Speaker 1: a dozen spots on a car chassis can look like
Speaker 1: a big old industrial arm that has a few points
Speaker 1: of articulation, or you do. You might have a robot
Speaker 1: that's just like this big stationary block that to you
Speaker 1: doesn't look like robot at all. Right, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: any features on it that screamed to you robot, but
Speaker 1: it is in fact an automated, repetitive machine designed to
Speaker 1: to do some task on its own. More or less.
Speaker 1: You might call it a robot by those definitions, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like what we think of when we
Speaker 1: hear the word robot. They may just be another element
Speaker 1: along an assembly line that helps produce some manufactured component,
Speaker 1: so they don't look human. But they also don't creep
Speaker 1: us out right. We don't look at these giant industrial
Speaker 1: robots and feel them like having an unsettling uh influence
Speaker 1: on us. We have a non emotional response to most
Speaker 1: of them. So it's just a it's just a thing.
Speaker 1: It's just like a tool. It's like if you saw
Speaker 1: a hammer or a screwdriver, you're not likely to have
Speaker 1: some sort of emotional response to that. So maybe instead
Speaker 1: of just grouping all robots together and saying they fall
Speaker 1: along this uncanny valley, we should really focus on a
Speaker 1: subset of robots, ones that incorporate elements of human like appearance.
Speaker 1: So that would count out stuff like room buzz. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't put your roomba in that category, right, Your industrial
Speaker 1: robots also wouldn't go in there. Um And I'm not saying,
Speaker 1: by the way, that your robotic vacuum cleaner isn't cute.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that for the purposes of an uncanny
Speaker 1: valley narrative or conversation, it doesn't really fit. But let's
Speaker 1: get back to Masahiro Mori. He created a pretty simple graph,
Speaker 1: a line chart with an X axis and a y axis.
Speaker 1: So the X axis the horizontal axis he wrote human likeness,
Speaker 1: So the further to the right you got along this axis,
Speaker 1: the more like a human the robot would appear. The
Speaker 1: y axis, the vertical axis is the affinity or the
Speaker 1: emotional response, like from no response to positive and if
Speaker 1: you dip below the line, like below the x axis,
Speaker 1: you go to negative response. Right, So this is how
Speaker 1: he would plot robots. He would argue that industrial robots
Speaker 1: score low both in human likeness and in affinity, that
Speaker 1: they don't look like humans and we don't tend to
Speaker 1: have an emotional response to them. So if you were
Speaker 1: to plot points on this graph, it would be pretty
Speaker 1: close to the x axis, pretty close to the y axis,
Speaker 1: so it would be the low part of the line.
Speaker 1: But then you get into things like toy robots, right,
Speaker 1: and these toys may look slightly more like a human
Speaker 1: than industrial robots do. They might be anthropomorphic, they might
Speaker 1: be bipedal um. But you would never mistake a simple
Speaker 1: toy robot for a human. You would just recognize the
Speaker 1: human like features, and our affinity goes up, our emotional
Speaker 1: response starts to be more positive compared to say, industrial robots,
Speaker 1: presumably because they look more like people or humans. So
Speaker 1: we have a slight upward slope of our line that
Speaker 1: we begin to plot. All right, before we get too
Speaker 1: far into this slope in this line, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. We'll come right back and talk a little
Speaker 1: more about Unkenny Valley. Okay, where we left off, we
Speaker 1: were saying that toy robots are slightly more humanlike in
Speaker 1: appearance than say, industrial robots, and that we have a
Speaker 1: more positive emotional response to them. So, according to Maury's graph,
Speaker 1: once we get past the fifty point where uh we
Speaker 1: start to really approach human likeness, we still see improvement
Speaker 1: in affinity. Right as robots get to look more and
Speaker 1: more human like, we start to be more and more
Speaker 1: positive in our acceptance of them. So think about like
Speaker 1: robots that have very expressive eyes. For example, they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily look like a human, but think of like a
Speaker 1: robot that has a vaguely kind of human shape, with
Speaker 1: like a torso and a head and stuff, and they
Speaker 1: have eyes that are large and appear to be expressive.
Speaker 1: Those are the kind of things that we tend to
Speaker 1: respond positively too. But then as we start to make
Speaker 1: the robots look more and more human like, maybe we
Speaker 1: put an artificial skin on them, We might put a
Speaker 1: wig on them to give them hair. We might make
Speaker 1: their eyes appear to be more human, and those eyes
Speaker 1: may or may not house camera, who knows. We may
Speaker 1: give them the ability to make certain expressions. Then we
Speaker 1: start to reach a point where we can get to
Speaker 1: that negative reaction, the affinity would dip below zero. So
Speaker 1: on our little chart, the slope now goes all the
Speaker 1: way down below the X axis and then bottoms out
Speaker 1: somewhere around there where we get to some horrifying monstrosity
Speaker 1: that just makes us wet ourselves when we look at it. Now,
Speaker 1: once you get past that point where the robot or
Speaker 1: artificial human is beyond that creepy factor, the line starts
Speaker 1: to go back up again, and eventually it overtakes where
Speaker 1: we left off before the depth, so that we eventually
Speaker 1: start seeking out experiences with those robots, or we seek out,
Speaker 1: you know, films that use that kind of computer animation
Speaker 1: because we find it really appealing. So it's no longer
Speaker 1: that there's this gap, there's this like perception that the
Speaker 1: thing is unnatural and it bothers us um. One example
Speaker 1: I saw using Morey's graph, his line chart was on
Speaker 1: the far side where things are going up again, where
Speaker 1: we're starting to see improvement is the bun rock Who
Speaker 1: puppet so Bunarrock Who is a form of puppet theater
Speaker 1: that dates back hundreds of years in Japan and in
Speaker 1: traditional bun rock who you have three puppeteers who control
Speaker 1: each figure. You have a primary puppeteer who is in
Speaker 1: charge of the character's head movements as well as their
Speaker 1: right hand. You have a secondary puppeteer who controls the
Speaker 1: left hand, and you have the third puppeteer responsible for
Speaker 1: the legs and feet. By the way, typically in the
Speaker 1: history of bun Rock who if you were to train
Speaker 1: in that kind of puppetry, you would start as someone
Speaker 1: who would manipulate feet and legs, work your way up
Speaker 1: to being the left hand, and then ultimately, if you
Speaker 1: were really skilled, you could graduate up to the point
Speaker 1: where you could control of puppets head and right hand.
Speaker 1: This art form obviously requires very careful coordination between the
Speaker 1: three puppeteers, and really accomplished performers can create incredible lifelike
Speaker 1: movements like it is captivating to watch bun Rock Ou theater.
Speaker 1: But I think the inclusion of bun Rock WU on
Speaker 1: the positive side, like Past the Uncanny Valley, demonstrates that
Speaker 1: there's something of an element of cultural and social factors
Speaker 1: that can affect our emotional reaction when we see something
Speaker 1: that we would describe as falling into the uncanny valley.
Speaker 1: Because I think, at least for some Western audiences, watching
Speaker 1: a bun rock Who performance might be a little unsettling. Certainly,
Speaker 1: the puppets can sometimes inspire that creepy feeling of themselves.
Speaker 1: So because it is not part of my culture, this
Speaker 1: this kind of bit theater. Even though I've seen these performances,
Speaker 1: it's not something that is coming from my culture or
Speaker 1: something I was exposed to a lot as a child.
Speaker 1: I find bun Rocky puppets to be a little unsettling.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll never forget when I visited my sister,
Speaker 1: a puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts, which is
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. They have an amazing museum, and I
Speaker 1: visited my sister, and it was after hours, but they
Speaker 1: let me in and said, go ahead and you can
Speaker 1: walk through the museum if you like. This is with
Speaker 1: all the main lights turned off, like they had lighting,
Speaker 1: but it was not the same lighting they would have
Speaker 1: during the day. So I'm in this dim area filled
Speaker 1: with puppets all staring at me, and it was very creepy.
Speaker 1: There were also puppets of varying degrees of human like,
Speaker 1: some of them, like bun rock Who, puppets, some of
Speaker 1: them more abstract. It was a really creepy experience. Now,
Speaker 1: my point here is that the Uncanny Valley might best
Speaker 1: describe a feeling you get upon encountering something that seems
Speaker 1: both humanlike and alien at the same time. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily describe a continuum that goes from not human at
Speaker 1: all two indistinguishable from human. That that is possibly the
Speaker 1: wrong way to look at this, right, that it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily things are getting better, Things are getting better, Things
Speaker 1: are getting better, woe, things are really terrible. Things are
Speaker 1: getting better again, because again, it all depends on what
Speaker 1: the robots built for, what the computer generated character is
Speaker 1: made for, and how it performs. I think it's fair
Speaker 1: to say that I experienced a similar unsettling feeling when
Speaker 1: I watched early videos of Boston Dynamics robots, you know,
Speaker 1: those four legged robots. They looked kind of like they
Speaker 1: were moving like an animal and kind of like they weren't,
Speaker 1: And that was really kind of an unsettling experience. And
Speaker 1: they look nothing like humans. Right, So I am, by
Speaker 1: no means an expert when it comes to subjects like
Speaker 1: robotics or psychology. So I fully admit that my hypothesis
Speaker 1: is coming without the benefit of expertise, right I. I
Speaker 1: can only say from what I've researched, And it may
Speaker 1: well be that we can describe artificial beings appearances as
Speaker 1: falling on this continuum that includes the Uncanny Valley. But
Speaker 1: I think there are other factors and variables at play here,
Speaker 1: mostly regarding the gap between an artificial beings behavior and
Speaker 1: appearance and the behavior and appearance of the real analog.
Speaker 1: And it might well be that younger generations will experience
Speaker 1: less of a sense of the Uncanny Valley because they
Speaker 1: will spend more of their lives around artificial beings, either
Speaker 1: in their entertainment or in the real world around them.
Speaker 1: So it may be that the Uncanny Valley will gradually
Speaker 1: kind of fade away, not because this continuum was solved,
Speaker 1: that we suddenly jumped past this perceived gap, but that
Speaker 1: the experience is no longer as foreign or alien of
Speaker 1: the people who are experiencing it as it is to
Speaker 1: older generations like like mine. So yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a take on Uncanny Valley. I really do think that
Speaker 1: if you do have that those subtle gaps, like especially
Speaker 1: around eye movement, things like that you can look and
Speaker 1: say this looks photo realistic. This looks like a really
Speaker 1: well done video, Like it looks like an actual person,
Speaker 1: except there's something off about the eyes, either the reflectiveness
Speaker 1: of them, the wetness of the eyes, the movement of
Speaker 1: the eyes. That's really where I see a lot of
Speaker 1: that following through. There's also a lot to be said
Speaker 1: about subtle facial expressions that aren't always captured in computer
Speaker 1: generated versions of characters, where it just seems a little
Speaker 1: too flat. But anyway, I thought that it would be
Speaker 1: fun to kind of talk about Uncanny Valley and where
Speaker 1: that idea came from. I'm curious to hear your thoughts
Speaker 1: on it if you would like to let me know,
Speaker 1: or maybe you've got a suggestion for a future episode.
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