Circling Around the Uncanny Valley: Design Principles for Research Into the Relation Between Human Likeness and Eeriness

The uncanny valley effect (UVE) is a negative emotional response experienced when encountering entities that appear almost human. Research on the UVE typically investigates individual, or collections of, near human entities but may be prone to methodological circularity unless the properties that give rise to the emotional response are appropriately defined and quantified. In addition, many studies do not sufficiently control the variation in human likeness portrayed in stimulus images, meaning that the nature of stimuli that elicit the UVE is also not well defined or quantified. This article describes design criteria for UVE research to overcome the above problems by measuring three variables (human likeness, eeriness, and emotional response) and by using stimuli spanning the artificial to human continuum. These criteria allow results to be plotted and compared with the hypothesized uncanny valley curve and any effect observed can be quantified. The above criteria were applied to the methods used in a subset of existing UVE studies. Although many studies made use of some of the necessary measurements and controls, few used them all. The UVE is discussed in relation to this result and research methodology more broadly

Socially Believable Robots

Long-term companionship, emotional attachment and realistic interaction with robots have always been the ultimate sign of technological advancement projected by sci-fi literature and entertainment industry. With the advent of artificial intelligence, we have indeed stepped into an era of socially believable robots or humanoids. Affective computing has enabled the deployment of emotional or social robots to a certain level in social settings like informatics, customer services and health care. Nevertheless, social believability of a robot is communicated through its physical embodiment and natural expressiveness. With each passing year, innovations in chemical and mechanical engineering have facilitated life-like embodiments of robotics; however, still much work is required for developing a “social intelligence” in a robot in order to maintain the illusion of dealing with a real human being. This chapter is a collection of research studies on the modeling of complex autonomous systems. It will further shed light on how different social settings require different levels of social intelligence and what are the implications of integrating a socially and emotionally believable machine in a society driven by behaviors and actions

From libertarian paternalism to liberalism: behavioural science and policy in an age of new technology

Behavioural science has been effectively used by policy makers in various domains, from health to savings. However, interventions that behavioural scientists typically employ to change behaviour have been at the centre of an ethical debate, given that they include elements of paternalism that have implications for people’s freedom of choice. In the present article, we argue that this ethical debate could be resolved in the future through implementation and advancement of new technologies. We propose that several technologies which are currently available and are rapidly evolving (i.e., virtual and augmented reality, social robotics, gamification, self-quantification, and behavioural informatics) have a potential to be integrated with various behavioural interventions in a non-paternalistic way. More specifically, people would decide themselves which behaviours they want to change and select the technologies they want to use for this purpose, and the role of policy makers would be to develop transparent behavioural interventions for these technologies. In that sense, behavioural science would move from libertarian paternalism to liberalism, given that people would freely choose how they want to change, and policy makers would create technological interventions that make this change possible

Characterisation in the novel: an aesthetic of the uncanny

The aim o f this dissertation is to devise techniques for characterisation in the novel which eschew the dominant, rational and integrated model o f subjectivity promoted in creative writing discourse. It examines the Freudian uncanny and cognate concepts of the sublime, the abject and ontological confusion which lead readers to hesitation, doubt and misrecognition in the process of ‘reading’ character. The emergence of creative writing degree programs and the popularity of guidebooks on the subject have had a modularising effect on approaches to novel writing: decomposing the process into constituent teachable parts. Within this discourse about novel writing, characterisation has become a chronically fixed element in which received models of the self, drawn from reductionist behavioural psychology, tend to dominate. The dissertation examines the grammar of this modular characterisation and the series of explicit and implicit rules of selection and transformation upon which it is based. It argues that it is necessary for the writer to disidentify with this discourse and re-examine their being-towards-others to achieve one of the primary critical or epistemological goals of the novel: exalting the wisdom of uncertainty with relation to the representation of self and other. Concepts drawn from structuralist and poststructuralist philosophy, social cognition, postmodern literary theory, cognitive science, analytical philosophy and psychology are examined for their usefulness to this creative problem o f eliciting reader reactions of hesitation, misrecognition, ontological confusion and doubt about the nature of the characters. The novel trilogies of Samuel Beckett and Paul Auster are offered as contemporary prototypes of the effect, with their non-referentiation and disorientation effects in characterisation. The “grammar of the uncanny” is then analysed with respect to two important aspects of characterisation: name and character behaviour. Commentary on the approach to characterisation in Monsters Worse to Come is also presented

The Media Inequality, Uncanny Mountain, and the Singularity is Far from Near: Iwaa and Sophia Robot versus a Real Human Being

Design of Artificial Intelligence and robotics habitually assumes that adding more humanlike features improves the user experience, mainly kept in check by suspicion of uncanny effects. Three strands of theorizing are brought together for the first time and empirically put to the test: Media Equation (and in its wake, Computers Are Social Actors), Uncanny Valley theory, and as an extreme of human-likeness assumptions, the Singularity. We measured the user experience of real-life visitors of a number of seminars who were checked in either by Smart Dynamics' Iwaa, Hanson's Sophia robot, Sophia's on-screen avatar, or a human assistant. Results showed that human-likeness was not in appearance or behavior but in attributed qualities of being alive. Media Equation, Singularity, and Uncanny hypotheses were not confirmed. We discuss the imprecision in theorizing about human-likeness and rather opt for machines that 'function adequately.

Teachers' perspectives on social robots in education:An exploratory case study

Research has shown that social robots carry potential to be used in an educational setting. The possibility to have multiple roles carried out by one tool does not only instigate curiosity but also raises concerns. Whereas practical challenges get tackled by rapid technological advances, the moral challenges often get overlooked. In this study, we examined the moral values related to educational robots from a teachers’ perspective, by first identifying concerns and opportunities, and subsequently linking them to (moral) values. We conducted focus group sessions with teachers to explore their perceptions regarding concerns and opportunities related to educational robots. Teachers voiced several considerations ranging from having concerns towards privacy to seeing opportunities in adding friendship and attachment a robot could emanate

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable