Robotic reindeer raise eyebrows: Will humans ever accept robots as normal?
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In the future, robots of all shapes and sizes may drive cars, check customers into a hotel room and even alternate between assisting the US military and serving as a robotic reindeer.
That鈥檚 the vision of Google-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics, which released a featuring a team of its Spot robotic dogs stepping delicately through a very snowless ground, pulling a sleigh.
Spot, a hydraulic-powered quadruped robot, which聽recently participated in training exercises with US Marines, could potentially have a large impact on military capabilities, as a rugged, fast-moving robot suitable for a variety of uses in difficult terrain.
But as with Boston Dynamic鈥檚 earlier Big Dog robot 鈥� which vaguely calls to mind a headless version of the mutant spiders from the 1954 鈥� Spot鈥檚 design seems to raise the question: why does this technology often appear so terrifying?
鈥淏oston Dynamics doesn't care if you never sleep again. Welcome to the future. We've just met the robotic soldiers fighting the war on Christmas,鈥� .
鈥淲e have to applaud the team on creating a video that will be spread far and wide and inspire fear in the hearts of many while also spreading the good news about the latest innovations in robotics,鈥� she added.
Reactions to the company鈥檚 card, which seem to run more towards the rather than heartwarming, may point a phenomenon researchers call the 鈥渦ncanny valley,鈥� where the more life-like and human a robot gets, the more people feel uneasy and fearful about them.
鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 that merging of the familiar and the strange that accounts for how deeply unnerving these machines are,鈥� in 2013, after watching a video of Boston Dynamics鈥� robot creations. 鈥淭he fact that something so totally artificial鈥攕o obviously unnatural 鈥� appears so weirdly close to a natural form. I find this contradiction almost literally nightmarish: It鈥檚 the horrible spectacle of the object which is alive, or the living thing which is also an object.鈥�
That concern has聽fueled science fiction since Mary Shelley鈥檚 鈥淔rankenstein鈥� and is聽likely to bedevil scientists and engineers as robots become more integrated into daily life.
Companies appear to have different takes on the challenge. Google鈥檚 prototype self-driving cars have been described as by one writer, while the appropriately named 鈥淲eird Hotel鈥� at a theme park in Japan features a bizarre robotic dinosaur as a checkout clerk.
It seems to leave an open question: will we always feel uneasy about robots often un-natural appearance, or will we eventually wonder why we ever thought reindeer didn鈥檛 look like Boston Dynamics鈥� Spot?
