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What is this, this is the electric version of Boston Dynamics' newly launched humanoid robot Atlas in the near future.
图源：Boston Dynamics
What is this! This is...... Put on a sweater set with an electric Atlas.
图源：The Verge
In the Atlas video released by Boston Dynamics, the robot showed amazing agility: it was lying on the ground and curled its legs back above its body, then stood up in a strange way. In the next demo, Atlas also rotated his head 180 degrees and turned his upper body around.
After the video was released, many people commented that it was almost like a shot from "Terminator", which was a bit creepy.
Do you find it "weird"? Reference 1
However, the uncanny valley theory of "scary" humanoid robots has been proposed for a long time. In 1906, the German psychiatrist Ernst Jench proposed the "uncanny valley", and in 1970, the Japanese robot researcher Mori Masahiro pointed out the reason why robots are scary: because robots are too human-like, we will have positive feelings about them, but after a certain level, any "strange" action made by robots will become very dazzling and terrifying. And if the similarity continues to rise, it will become less "scary".
As you can see, there is also a difference between the uncanny valley brought by mobile (dotted line) and static (solid line) robots|wiki
Let's take a look at Atlas's strange movements|Reference 1
In 2015, a study asked participants to rate 80 types of robots to see what they looked like they might find scary. Some of them look like people, some half-like (more terrible), and some don't look like them at all. They found that as the robot's face became more human-like, their favorability of them first continued to rise, and then dropped sharply. Moreover, robots that look too much like humans will not only make people unfavorable, but they are also considered untrustworthy.
This is the face of 80 different robots in the study. Reference 7
In fact, Boston Dynamics has made some improvements to make the Atlas less human-like, and in an interview with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter by IEEE Spectrum, Playter mentioned that the electric version of the Atlas's head was designed to look less human-like and convey a friendly atmosphere. Because if it were more human-like, it would give a "sense of threat".
However, there are still some people who find the Atlas a bit intimidating. In a report, a researcher at Indiana University argues that people find Atlas scary because it moves in a weird way that goes against human expectations of it.
Sophia, a social humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics that is said to trigger "feelings of love" in humans? How do you feel? ｜wiki
So, how can you make a humanoid robot look less scary? Some people believe that the material of the humanoid robot should be changed to make them look less cold. In a 2019 study, scientists showed participants videos of robots made of three different materials: plastic, synthetic fur and wood. As a result, the researchers found that people would feel that the plastic robot was not "warm" enough compared to the other two, but they would not feel that the plastic robot was inadequate.
Which material makes you feel better? Reference 3
And in 2022, a study wondered if whether a robot's presence or absence of fur would have an impact on how people feel. They found that when Boston Dynamics' robot dog Digidog was deployed on the streets of New York, residents reacted negatively, with Mayor de Blasio at the time arguing that "the robot dog was creepy, alienating, and sent the wrong message to New Yorkers." ”
Therefore, in order to make the robot dog less scary, the researchers put on a fur suit for Sony's Aibo robot dog, which can make it really feel like a dog when touched. However, did the participants think that this seemed even more weird? The situation is not better. Because Aibo's upper body is still a robot dog, and the lower body is like a real dog......
There is too little fur covered...... Reference 2
According to research, if robots resemble machines. People won't expect a lot from it, but the more like a human, the more people expect too much from it, making the brain make some "predictions", and when the humanoid robot is wrong with your predictions, it will create a "uncanny valley". Nowadays, how to make a robot look like a human and not like a human is the content designed by many humanoid robot companies. For example, Tesla's robot is designed to have no face, SoftBank's robot Pepper is designed to be cartoon-style, and some robots deliberately expose the mechanical parts of the body.
The faceless Optimus Gen2 and the "cute" Pepper
After all, if we want humanoid robots to do some of the work in our lives, we may still need to consciously design and create technology that can be more harmoniously integrated into our lives.
However, there is another option, which is to stop robots from "being human-like", as Robert Playter said in an interview, robots can be more powerful and flexible to do things that people don't want to do. So perhaps, there is no need to pursue robots that simply imitate human movements? Or...... Can robots directly surpass humans in some ways?
The hydraulic version of the Atlas already shows a high degree of agility in motion. Playter said in the interview that the electric version of the Atlas is stronger, most of the joints are stronger than elite athletes, and the range of motion will exceed anything a human can achieve.
Resources:
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M&t=12s
[2]https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/22/3/1287
[3]https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1371178/FULLTEXT01.pdf
[4]https://www.ri.cmu.edu/publications/knock-on-wood-the-effects-of-material-choice-on-the-perception-of-social-robots/
[6]https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1007/978-3-030-35888-4_20