The Uncanny Horizon

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Wired Magazine’s NextFest was like a magical lens that let me peer over the spatiotemporal horizon into the future. Of course, horizons are sometimes populated by mirages of shimmering cities, and the entrance to NextFest was though a shimmering misty holoscreen.

One of the first citizens that I encountered in that mystical futuristic land of NextFest was Jules. They call Jules an “androdgenoid” because its face was made from a composite of the 3D face scans of thousands of men and women. I was surprised at how pleasant looking that average was, so I had my own face scanned at the show. That alone should be enough to end the age of pleasant looking robots.

In the right light, and at the right distance, and with the desire for it to be so, I was amazed at how human looking Jules skin appeared. Jules face went through an amazing range of emotions, many more than I am capable of expressing. The expressions were realistic enough to be believable. For entire milliseconds, the illusion that Jules is human holds. However, that spark of life flickers off as fast as it starts and you’re left looking at something very creepy like an animated dead person. In fact that effect has a name. It is called the Uncanny Valley, and I was standing in it.

NextFest let me envision a world populated by both humans and autonomous human like robots. There may come a day when that hard working boss of yours, that sets the tone at work, might really be a robot, and you’ll never know, as you work ever harder just to keep up.

However, right now these human like special effects are largely preprogrammed. Many of these robots seem to be little more than very large, multimillion dollar Tickle Me Elmo toys. That’s not to understate the great achievement in getting to this point, but the next level of meaningful changes will be a lot harder to achieve, and will no doubt take a lot longer. Perhaps none of us alive today will live to see them. Then again, we might be surprised by sudden breakthroughs. Let’s hope so/not.

After attending the “Robots Almost Human” panel discussion, I ordered a drink at the Robobar from a robotic bartender that used to build cars back in the days when there was a robust auto building industry. I quickly tired of listening to its endless litany of the same jokes as it spoke with each customer in the same way. I turned my attention one last time to the Kokoro Actroid and watched her dance a traditional Japanese dance. I raised my glass, filled with a drink the RoboBar calls “sparkling sunshine” and gave a toast to the future as seen over Wired Magazine’s uncanny horizon. - Korba

In the Picture (click on photo to enlarge):

Row1:

NextFext Banner outside the Javits Center,
“Robots Almost Human” panel discussion moderated by Adam Rogers of Wired, with David Hanson, Hanson Robotics, Takehashi Mita, Kokoro; Dr. Jun-Ho Oh, KAIST.

Row 2:

Robonaut with Centaur Base, NASA,
Partner Ballroom Dance Robots from Tohoku University, Nomura Unison, Troiso (with Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipOne in the background)
Future Force Warrior, US Army Natick Soldier Center

Row 3:

Jules by Hanson Robotics
Alex Hubo, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Actroid Der, Kokoro
RoboBar by Motoman