Robots that don't look like humans are not scary - we don't see them as rivals. But humanoid androids are a common cause of our fears …
Preparing for the release of the second season of Westworld, inventor and TV presenter Simone Geertz - aka "Queen of Useless Robots" - assembled an android that looks as much like herself as possible and shot a stylized video for the fantastic HBO series:
Simona and her robotic projects have become the heroes of our site more than once. The child prodigy became interested in programming at the age of eight, and although she found it too boring to get an academic education, she independently mastered robotics and electronics, becoming famous for her witty and always ridiculous machines, including a robot for making sandwiches or a stupid robot dog.
Simona's new android is still ridiculous, but also downright frightening. She took as a basis a dummy for training medical students, trying to make it as "human" as possible. To a certain extent, she succeeded - the robot became noticeably more like a living woman - but that's why it turned out to be even more creepy. Similarly, Jia Jia, a feminine robot created by professionals from the Chinese University of Science and Technology, whose appearance is much closer to that of a human, is scary.
Yes, we are dealing with the famous "eerie valley effect", which was first noticed 50 years ago. Today he is widely known: a robot that looks something like a human (but not exactly like a real human) causes particular dislike and disgust. The reasons for this are not yet clear - perhaps such a feeling arises from the subconscious feeling of the impossibility of mutual empathy with an "almost human" being. The video of the popular video blogger Artur Sharifov tells more about this:
A wonderful fantastic short film from the 3DAR project is dedicated to "The Evil Valley Effect". You can watch the film in Russian in translation by Duck Hack studio:
Roman Fishman