We hate robots. Ok, wait, back up. We at least think they are more evil than good. Try it yourself – “are robots” in Google nets you evil before good. Megatron has higher SEO than Optimus Prime, and it’s not just because he’s so much cooler. It cuz he evil, cuz. It do be like that.
It’s not even a compliment to call someone robotic; society connotes this to emotionless preprogrammed shells of hideous nothing, empty clankbags that walk and talk and not much else. So, me at a party. Or if you’re a nerd, you’re a robot. (Me at a party once again.)
Let’s start by assuming robots as human-like bipedal machines that are designed with some amount of artificial intelligence, generally designed to fulfill a job to free up humanity from drudgery. All sounds good so far. So why do they creep us out?
There’s a litany of reasons why, best summed up with the concept of the uncanny valley, first coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori (Wow he’s still alive! The robots have not yet won) in 1970. Essentially, we know what a human is and how it looks and behaves against the greater backdrop of life and physics. When this is translated to a synthetic being, we are ok with making a robot look and act like us to a point, where we then notice all the irregularities and differences.
Most of these are minor – unnaturally smooth or rigid movements, light not scattering properly on a surface, eyes that don’t sync up quite right when they blink, and several other tiny details. Lots of theories take over at this point about why this creeps us out. But a blanket way to think about it is that our expectation doesn’t match what we are seeing; the reality we’re presented with is off just enough and this makes us uncomfortable .
Ever stream a show and the audio is a half second off? Makes you really annoyed. Magnify that feeling by a thousand and you’re smack in the middle of the uncanny valley. It’s that unnerving. One possible term for this is abjection, which is what happens the moment before we begin to fear something. Our minds – sensing incompatibility with robots – know this is something else, something other , and faced with no way to categorize this, we crash.
This is why they make good villains in movies – something we don’t understand and given free will and autonomy, potentially imbued with the bias of a creator or capable of forming terrifying conclusions all on its own (humans are a virus). But they also make good heroes, especially if they are cute or funny. Who doesn’t love C3PO? That surprise that they are good delights us. Build in enough appeal to a robot, and we root for them and feel empathy when they are faced with hardships. Do robots dream of electric sheep? Do robots have binary souls? Bits and zeros and ones?
Professor Jaime Banks (Texas Tech University’s College of Media & Communication) spends a lot of time thinking about how we perceive robots. It’s a complex and multifaceted topic that covers anthropomorphism, artificial intelligence, robot roles within society, trust, inherently measuring virtue versus evil, preconceived notions from entertainment, and numerous topics that cover human-robot interactions.
The world is approaching a future where robots may become commonplace; there are already robot bears in Japan working in the healthcare field. Dressing them up with cute faces and smiles may help, but one jerky movement later and we’ve dropped all suspension.
At some point, we have to make peace with the idea that they will be all over the place. Skynet, GLaDOS in Portal, the trope of your evil twin being a robot that your significant will have to shoot in the middle of your fight, that episode of Futurama where everything was a robot and they rose up against their human masters with wargod washing machines and killer greeting cards, the other Futurama episode where they go to a planet full of human hating murderous robots… We’ve all got some good reasons to fear robots and their coded minds.
But as technology advances, it makes sense to have robots take over menial tasks, perform duties for the needy and sick, and otherwise benefit humanity at large. And so the question we face is how to build that relationship now to help us in the future.
There’s a fine line between making them too humanlike versus too mechanical. Pixar solved the issue of unnerving humanoids in their movies by designing them stylistically – we know they are human and accept that the figure would look odd in real life. We can do the same with robots – enough familiarity to develop an appeal, but not enough to erase the divide between humanity and robot. It may just be a question of time and new generations growing up with robots becoming fixtures of everyday life. I’m down for cyborgs too.
Fearing them might not even be bad, as Banks points out: “…a certain amount of fear can be a useful thing. Fear can make us think critically and carefully and be thoughtful about our interactions, and that would likely help us productively engage a world where robots are key players.”
Also, check out Robot Carnival if you get the chance – specifically the Presence episode of the anthology.
Michelle DeRepentigny
May 7, 2009 at 12:52 pm
With the technology available now, my opinion is that all NAR policy & procedure items for consideration should be put to an all member vote with majority ruling, instead of being limited to a recommendation by committee and vote from board of directors. Our future within what is supposed to be our trade organization is mapped by very few hands, and it seems many of us feel very unrepresented by those hands.
Paula Henry
May 7, 2009 at 2:51 pm
While the current system may be mapped by few hands, I’m not sure the answer lies in a majority rules vote. For those of us who grasp the technology, it seems a wise choice. Still -agents who want to keep things “the way they were” may actually outnumber us.
In any other business,(insert field), an owner who failed to keep up with changes in their industry would be out of business. They languish for lack of knowledge and no drive to learn – they have no one to blame but themselves.
Michelle DeRepentigny
May 7, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Paula, it may not give us the answer we want/need either, but it would give us more opportunity and a reason to attempt to educate others, and a vehicle to at least attempt change. I was thrilled to see that NAR is giving “us” voices through yourself and Jay at mid year.
Joe@Augusta GA Homes
May 8, 2009 at 8:21 am
A simple example of how this is failing us all can be found in the Tax Credit. Some states allow the $8,000 to be used as a downpayment on FHA loans, others do not. A Federal tax credit for downpayment on a Federal mortgage, and the rules are determined in each state? Why isn’t NAR involved in that to push it nationwide? What exactly are they doing to further our trade and increase our visibilty and reputation? The schmitzy NAR ads wouldn’t make me buy a house – and the whole “only Realtors are members of the National Association of Realtors” line in the radio and TV ads begs the question – if that’s the case, then why aren’t they out front?
Mary Englund
May 8, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Oregon is an all broker state (no agents) so we have a lot of small broker businesses. Making NAR broker only won’t solve the lack of responsiveness NAR has to small brokerages (or independent brokers). Serving the Big national franchises seems to take precedence. NAR needs to get back to basics and remember why we organized in the first place. And it wasn’t to market to consumers, the internet, google, or anywhere else. NAR is an important lobby, one we need. One to serve all brokers and agents. The MLS is a vehicle not for the consumer, but for brokers to make business offers to each other to share commissions. NAR should facilitate our businesses, nothing else, whether you are a small independent business or a large one. Let us decide HOW we will market and do business–give us the tools to make cooperative offers to each other (MLS), provide a forum for disputes, and get out of the way on everything else. NAR, in creating Realtor.com, has created a monster, something way beyond the scope of our basic premise for the organization. Let the marketplace handle the technology and how it works, stick to the basics. NAR can’t stay ahead of the technology curve anyway. In creating RETS NAR missed the boat in prohibiting MLS’s from charging outrageous fees to small brokers who want to use RETS, thus preventing them from playing. All in favor of big offices with huge desk fees? Thank NAR for supporting this idea by failing keep an eye on how their actions will be manipulated by local associations to suit the dominant players at the expense of everyone else. I’m sick of paying MLS fees and Realtor dues only to be told that no one cares if I’m not getting my money’s worth–or even close. It’s a take it or leave it game, and the small brokers have no choice, or voice.
Benn Rosales
May 8, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Mary, 2 years ago, hell, maybe even a year ago, I was standing exactly shoulder to shoulder with you, but I fear that genie has escaped the bottle.
The problem we seem to have now, is now…
We railed about this out here in the public, and to be honest, got very little support from offline agents, and some online agents.
The fight is still ongoing to frame the issue and reverse what damage that can be reversed, but without real help from offliners, it isn’t going to happen.
I really feel your frustration in your words, I really do.