Re-thinking robotic design: social support robots diving us into the uncanny valley. We don’t need robots to look like humans. Am I the only one here who has never wanted a robot to raise my kids? Am I the only one that thinks there could be more harm if it looks human?

重新思考机器人设计：社交支持机器人将我们带入了异常谷。 我们不需要机器人看起来像人类。 我是这里唯一一个不想让机器人养育孩子的人吗？ 我是唯一认为如果看起来像人一样可能会造成更大伤害的人吗？

The human brain is wired around faces: they’re the center of how we see emotions which causes us to see them in everyday objects. Now, we are re-wiring our brains with our phones without a real plan regarding the long term effects. What happens when we give our phones a face — the feedback loop will be even more amplified.

人的大脑缠绕在面部周围： 它们是我们如何看待情绪的中心，这些情绪使我们能够在日常对象中看到它们 。 现在，我们没有使用关于长期影响的切实计划，就用手机重新连接了大脑 。 当我们面对手机时会发生什么—反馈回路将更加放大。

This article considers the effects of robot design as an emotional tool and why we are not prepared at all for the repercussions. It’s a tour of the uncanny valley, robotic style, robotic examples, and where we can start.

本文将机器人设计的效果视为一种情感工具，并解释了为什么我们根本没有做好应对冲击的准备。 这是对神秘谷，机器人风格，机器人示例以及我们可以从何处开始的游览。

神秘谷 (The Uncanny Valley)

Its original name was bukimi no tani genshō — which from Japanese roughly translates to Valley of Eeriness. The Uncanny Valley is the drop in human likeness for robots on the path from unlike humans to nearly indiscernible from us — the likeness drops when the robots are in between awkward and perfect (uncanniness is a familiar eeriness).

原名 是bukimi no tanigenshō-来自日语 大致翻译为“狂野之谷”。 Uncanny山谷是从不一样的人类到我们几乎无法分辨的道路上机器人的人类相似度下降-当机器人介于笨拙和完美之间时，相似度下降(松散是一种熟悉的恐惧)。

Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori is credited with the term. It does seem like quite a Japanese concept: requires observation, introspective, human, artistic, etc. I like Japan, but this is an aside. A visualization of it is below [source]. From bottom to top is how much a human will enjoy spending time with the robot, and from left to right is how human the robot is.

日本机器人手森昌宏(Masahiro Mori )曾被冠以这个名词。 它似乎确实是一个日本概念：需要观察，内省，人类，艺术等。我喜欢日本，但这是一个问题。 它的可视化在[ source ]下。 从下至上是人类会喜欢与机器人共度时光的程度，而从左至右则是机器人的境界。

Starting 2020, we are at the point where robots (more later on some examples):

从2020年开始，我们正处在机器人时代(更多示例见下文)：

a) are good at some tasks and way better than humans at others,

a)擅长某些任务，在某些方面胜于人类，

b) can be made to look eerily human — when stationary (ie by their construction), not in movement, which still is jerky and preliminary.

b)可以使人看起来很古怪—在静止时(即通过其构造)，而不是在运动中，这仍然是生涩而初步的。

这是如何运作的？ (How does this work?)

I found this summary of why the uncanny valley appears useful:

我发现了这个令人难以置信的山谷为何有用的摘要 ：

Mori’s original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers’ emotional response to the robot becomes increasingly positive and empathetic, until it reaches a point beyond which the response quickly becomes strong revulsion. However, as the robot’s appearance continues to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.

森的原始假设指出，随着机器人的外观变得更加人性化，一些观察者对机器人的情感React变得越来越积极和 富有同情心 ，直到React点Swift变为强烈的反感。 但是，随着机器人的外观与人类的区别越来越小，情感React再次变得积极，并接近人与人之间的同理心。

This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a “barely human” and “fully human” entity is the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot seems overly “strange” to some human beings, produces a feeling of uncanniness, and thus fails to evoke the empathic response required for productive human–robot interaction.

由机器人引起的这种排斥React区域在“裸露的人类”和“纯人类的”实体之间出现并运动。 这个名字抓住了一个想法，即看起来几乎像人类的机器人在某些人看来过于“陌生”，产生一种 单调乏味 的感觉 ，因此未能唤起 人与机器人进行有效交互所 需要的共情React 。

The last sentence is the crucial one: a robot “fails to evoke the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction.” To me there are two key phrases: a) evocation of an emphatic response and b) an indication of productive human-robot interaction. This leads me to the questions: if making robots look human causes failed interactions, why make them look human at all? Do we have no risk if they’re never made to look human? I think it is crucial to consider, and expect the answer to be that a near majority of robots do not need to look human. The categories that benefit from humanness, like medical and social robots need an increased level of scrutiny because those applications fall on a knife’s edge of risk.

最后一句是关键的一条：“ 未能 唤起 了 富有成效的 人机交互 所需 的移情React ”的机器人 对我来说，有两个关键词：a)引起强烈的React，b)产生有效的人机交互。 这就引出了我的问题：如果使机器人看起来像人，会导致交互失败，为什么要使它们看起来像人呢？ 如果从不让它们看起来像人类，我们没有风险吗？ 我认为考虑至关重要，并希望答案是几乎所有的机器人都不需要看起来像人类 。 受益于人类的类别，例如医疗和社交机器人，需要提高审查的水平，因为这些应用程序属于风险之门。

Below is a fun experiment where they measured reactions to a bunch of robots that people rated on “mechano-humanness score.” The findings match the theory pretty well, except they may be forcing a cubic function to the data, and there are impressively few points in the actual uncanny valley — we’ll have to keep an eye on this type of data over time.

以下是一个有趣的实验，其中他们测量了人们对“机械人性得分”的评价。 这些发现与理论非常吻合，只是它们可能迫使数据具有三次函数，而且在实际不可思议的低谷中令人印象深刻的是很少的点-我们将不得不长期关注这种类型的数据。

[Source: Mathur, Maya B.; Reichling, David B. (2016). “Navigating a social world with robot partners: a quantitative cartography of the Uncanny Valley”. Cognition. 146: 22–32. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.09.008. PMID26402646.]

[资料来源：Mathur，Maya B .； Reichling，David B.(2016年)。 “与机器人合作伙伴一起对社会世界进行导航：Uncanny Valley的定量制图” 。 认知 。 146 ：22–32。 doi ： 10.1016 / j.cognition.2015.09.008 。 PMID 26402646 。]

机器人风格并避免离奇 (Robotic style & avoiding the uncanny)

What if we don’t need our robots to be purely human. We can focus on making them quirky (a friendly way of making things engaging), and matching the personality with the task can improve functionality. Let’s look at some designs and how they fall on the uncanny valley (or if they’re off it) and what directions the design pushes it.

如果我们不需要我们的机器人是纯粹的人类，该怎么办？ 我们可以专注于使它们变得古怪(使事物引人入胜的友好方式)，并使个性与任务相匹配可以改善功能。 让我们看一下一些设计，以及它们如何落在奇异的山谷上(或者如果它们不在斜坡上)以及设计推动它的方向。

Writer’s note — this half of the article was challenging to write. It feels like the idea of having a human face on the robot is being pulled up by how accessible the design is and pulled down by a dark cloud of potential downside. The upside of technology is readily apparent and constantly unfolding, so I try to analyze the risk in a measured way. Sometimes I think I do miss it; please comment if you have additions. I think my bias for and against certain robots may actually track the uncanny.

编者注–本文的后半部分很难编写。 感觉像是通过在设计上的可访问性来抬起机器人上的人脸，并在潜在的负面影响中将其拖下。 技术的优势显而易见，并且不断发展，因此我尝试以一种可衡量的方式分析风险。 有时我想我确实很想念它。 如果您有补充，请发表评论。 我认为我对某些机器人的偏见实际上可以追踪到这种怪异。

启动机器人 (Starting bots)

Starting historically, one of the first humanoid robots was Asimo from Honda in 2000 (the age of the webpage matches the age of the robot, still). This robot was a breakthrough in terms of mechanical hardware and use but had little risk in uncanniness. This is sort of a baseline.

从历史上开始，最早的人形机器人之一是本田的2000年Asimo ( 网页的年龄仍然与机器人的年龄相匹配)。 该机器人在机械硬件和使用方面是一项突破，但几乎没有麻烦的风险。 这只是一个基准。

Now, one of my favorites is a modern take on a social robot — and it nails it. See Paro, the supportive stuff seal. Gently noises, a soft construction, and pleasant to the eye — it’s like a puppy if you cross your eyes far enough. (Look at this headline about it: “Cuddling Robot Baby Seal Paro Proven to Make Life Less Painful,” what more do robots need to solve). I honestly think simple social support robots will get worse from here: this one nails it as a gentle buddy that tries to nudge you to be better but isn’t a therapist solving all your problems. Making the move from a seal to a human support robot will be tough on the user.

现在，我最喜欢的一个功能是对社交机器人进行了现代化的设计-并将其付诸实践。 参见Paro ，支持性材料密封。 轻柔的声音，柔和的结构和令人愉悦的视线-如果您将视线移到足够远的地方就好比小狗。 (有关此标题，请看：“ 拥抱机器人Baby Seal Paro被证明可以减轻生活的痛苦 ，”机器人还需要解决更多问题)。 老实说，我认为简单的社交支持机器人会从这里变得更糟：这个人把它钉为一个温柔的伙伴，试图使您变得更好，但不是解决所有问题的治疗师。 从密封件转移到人工支撑机器人将对用户造成困难。

最近的机器人 (Recent bots)

There were two articles that caught my eye in the first half of 2020, with tweet embeddings to add photos that give context.

在2020年上半年，有两篇文章引起了我的注意，其中有推文嵌入以添加提供背景信息的照片。

An expose on retail jobs, robots, and how companies are making robots liked. [NYT]

提供有关零售工作，机器人以及公司如何使机器人受欢迎的信息 。 [ 纽约时报 ]

演示地址

This is really more of the same news cycle during COVID. Robots replacing humans where-ever they can. That’ll be continuing for a few years, but why do you need to put a face on a speaker reminding people to be socially distance or a manipulator moving objects on an assembly line? Familiarity and assumptions on design.

实际上，这与COVID期间的新闻周期更多。 机器人尽可能地取代人类。 这种情况将持续数年，但是为什么您需要在演讲者上放一张脸，提醒人们保持社交距离，或者操纵者在装配线上移动物体？ 对设计的熟悉程度和假设。

Pandemic playmates for kids at home. [WSJ]

孩子们在家中的大流行玩伴。 [ WSJ ]

演示地址

This one is really creepy. It also came out that this company may have been collecting data on children (no extremely reputable sources, disclosure). Just click the link above and watch a bit of it from the point of view of an innocent child trying to learn from, emulate, and attach to this thing (price point $1499). Another theme I want to touch is: why do so many robotics companies seem to miss the mark?

这真的很令人毛骨悚然。 结果还表明，该公司可能一直在收集有关儿童的数据(没有极负盛名的信息披露)。 只需单击上面的链接，然后从一个无辜的孩子试图学习，模仿并附加到该东西的角度观看一下(价格为1499美元)。 我想谈谈的另一个主题是：为什么这么多的机器人公司似乎没有兑现目标？

Really, I have to ask in the context of 2020: what makes a good AI? There’s so much going on in the world, this is the bare minimum.

确实，我必须在2020年的背景下问：什么才是好的AI？ 世界上发生了太多事情，这是最低要求。

• Functionality — it needs to work and do something of value.
  功能-它需要工作并做出有价值的事情。
• Performance — it needs to be able to do what you want to do without many barriers. This is the “how well does it work” category.
  性能-它需要能够无障碍地做您想做的事情。 这是“效果如何”类别。
• Character — people have an affinity to robots because they’re fun.
  角色-人们很喜欢机器人，因为它们很有趣。
• Safety — what are the short and long term consequences, or an idea of how to monitor them.
  安全-短期和长期后果是什么，或者如何监控这些后果的想法。

游览山谷 (Navigating the valley)

What we have learned so far is that designing your AI to be human has some risks. There are downstream discussions about making your AI “human-like” in other things than appearance, such as ability. A podcast stuck with me at one point made the argument (roughly, not a direct quote):

到目前为止，我们了解到的是，将您的AI设计为人性化存在一些风险。 在下游方面，关于在外观等其他方面使您的AI像人一样，例如能力。 有一次我的播客提出了自己的观点(大概不是直接引述)：

What if the mediocre online chat tools of today played a facade as an English second-language employee from Asia? Would we be less critical of its mistakes?

如果当今平庸的在线聊天工具在亚洲作为英语第二语言的雇员起到了正面作用，那该怎么办？ 我们对它的错误是否会有所批评？

The answer is most likely yes, from a different flavor of sociological differences, but I think this is an important point in robot design: character, how well they work, and what they do are all at play. Let me make the point here of two different chatbots that may be more or less useful for a customer:

答案很可能是肯定的，来自不同的社会学差异，但是我认为这是机器人设计中的重要一点：角色，它们的工作状况以及它们的作用都在发挥作用。 让我在这里指出两个不同的聊天机器人，它们可能或多或少对客户有用：

The near-perfect Google AI:

近乎完美的Google AI：

1. Character: this ceases to exist, this AI acts like a computer but still adds fake human noises like uhm and laughs, therein becoming rapidly eerie.

   性格：这已经不复存在，这种AI的行为就像一台计算机，但仍然增加了虚假的人类噪音，例如嗡嗡声和笑声，在其中Swift变得阴森恐怖。

2. Function: answers basic questions about your product or day.
   功能：回答有关您的产品或日期的基本问题。
3. Performance: near-perfect, and improving by the day.
   性能：近乎完美，并且每天都在改进。

The far-off, quirky, shy chatbot:

遥不可及，古怪，害羞的聊天机器人：

1. Character: this robot has some personality that lets it own up to its mistakes and maybe have things you may want to discover about it.
   性格：该机器人具有一定的个性，可以使自己承担自己的错误，并可能拥有一些您想发现的东西。
2. Function: answers basic questions about your product or day.
   功能：回答有关您的产品或日期的基本问题。
3. Performance: maybe intentionally, slightly behind. Developing it may make it less usable, who knows.
   表现：也许是故意的，稍稍落后。 谁知道，开发它可能会使它的可用性降低。

I would rather work with the second bot — it’ll be like the slow internet versus no internet conundrum: slow internet is worse. The quirky chatbot is moving one direction on the uncanny valley chart, but I can’t tell which direction. Is it more or less human to have character? Would we detect false character?

我宁愿使用第二个机器人-就像慢速互联网而不是没有互联网难题：慢速互联网更糟。 这个古怪的聊天机器人正在异常谷图上移动一个方向，但我无法确定哪个方向。 拥有品格是人类吗？ 我们会检测到假字符吗？

This dilemma — which direction is technology moving in the uncanny valley — is why I added the disclaimer (writer’s note) above, it seemed like adding humanness to the robot enhanced its likeness. Chatbots could just be behind on the uncanny valley (as Google continues to perfect it, it’ll start getting more likable again).

这种困境- 技术在神秘谷中的发展方向 -就是为什么我在上面添加了免责声明( 作者的注解 )，似乎在机器人中增加了人性就增强了它的相似性。 聊天机器人可能会落后于不可思议的山谷(随着Google不断完善它，它将再次变得更加讨人喜欢)。

Clippy的情况(是的，我知道那确实是一个失败) (The case for Clippy (yes, I know it was really a failure))

Now let’s consider a famous AI that got some hate — Microsoft Office’s help tool: Clippy the Paperclip.

现在，让我们考虑一个令人讨厌的著名AI — Microsoft Office的帮助工具： Clippy the Paperclip。

• Character: through the roof. Almost too much — Clippy will interrupt you, and know it is doing so. The design is openly strange, which in some ways makes it more accessible.
  性格：通过屋顶。 几乎太多了-Clippy会打扰您，并且知道它正在这样做。 该设计公开地很奇怪，在某些方面使其更易于使用。
• Functionality: it is a general-purpose Microsoft help search bar.
  功能：这是一个通用的Microsoft帮助搜索栏。
• Performance: not great, but it was the first of its kind.
  性能：不太好，但这是同类产品中的第一个。
• Safety: TBD, you couldn’t turn it off.
  安全性：待定，您无法将其关闭。

If this was a human aide in Microsoft office 20 years ago, it would’ve had a different course. It would’ve been competing with call centers and other forms of help, but by being unique it has the benefit of being judged on a fresh slate. I consider Clippy a success because it opened up new territory, was memorable, occasionally useful, and didn’t serve to disadvantage any individuals or groups long term.

如果这在20年前是Microsoft Office中的人类助手，它会一直有不同的课程。 它本来会与呼叫中心和其他形式的帮助竞争，但由于具有独特性，因此具有被重新评估的好处。 我认为Clippy是成功的，因为它开拓了新的领域，令人难忘，偶尔有用，并且长期没有对任何个人或团体造成不利影响。

Obviously, it’s performance and aggressiveness limited Clippy, but it was a great character. I would love to see more companies release something memorable and safe.

显然，它的性能和侵略性限制了Clippy，但这是一个很棒的角色。 我希望看到更多公司发布令人难忘且安全的产品。

Looking back a few years to see where the AIs of the world were, it’s pretty clear we’re in the first peak of the uncanny valley, and I’m not sure if society is ready for the fall. Robots are getting more human, people are getting more addicted to their phones, and soon we will contend with the mixture of both of these. Another conversation that fights my views on this topic can be found here (the last hour), which suggests that making robots human is worth it because that could make everything we do more meaningful.

回顾过去几年，看看世界上的AI在哪里，很明显，我们处在神秘谷的第一个高峰，我不确定社会是否为秋天做好了准备。 机器人变得越来越人性化，人们越来越沉迷于手机，不久我们将对这两种方式进行竞争。 是战斗在这个题目可以发现我的观点的另一个谈话这里 (最后一小时)，这表明制作机器人的人是值得的，因为这可以让我们做更多有意义的一切。

I will continue this story of re-thinking robotics in talking about how the mathematical model behind most robots may be limiting their integration into homes.

在讨论大多数机器人背后的数学模型如何限制其集成到家庭中时，我将继续重新思考机器人技术的故事。

该地区的资源 (Resources in the area)

播客 (Podcasts)

• Lex Fridman with Kate Darling on Social Robots: This is a higher-level discussion including robot ethics, how humans should treat robots, the problems with personal robots, and deeper concepts like consciousness and mortality from the frame of a roboticist.

  莱克斯·弗里德曼(Lex Fridman)和凯特·达林(Kate Darling)在社交机器人上 ：这是一个更高层次的讨论，包括机器人伦理学，人类应如何对待机器人，个人机器人的问题以及更深层次的概念，例如机器人专家的意识和死亡率。

• Lex Fridman with Rosalind Picard on Emotion in Robots: This is primarily on research regarding making any progress on AI for emotion recognition and assistance. Thankfully, the podcast spends a lot of time on the potential ethical concerns of this field of work (people trying to read emotions for advertising and other deleterious actors).

  Lex Fridman和Rosalind Picard一起探讨“机器人中的情感” ：这主要是关于在人工智能方面取得任何进展的研究，以用于情感识别和辅助。 值得庆幸的是，播客将大量时间花在了这一工作领域的潜在道德问题上(人们试图读取广告和其他有害演员的情绪)。

These two podcasts make the case (long-form podcast, so somewhat round-about in getting there) for a) why dealing with emotions in robotics is hard and b) why the robots we make may be self-limiting.

这两个播客说明了这种情况(长形播客，因此到达那里有些绕来绕去)：a)为什么处理机器人技术中的情感很难，并且b)为什么我们制造的机器人可能是自我限制的。

电影 (Movies)

• Big Hero 6: A good pep talk movie for experts or aspiring roboticists — just a fun story about what is good about making robots. Baymax looking gently human works.

  Big Hero 6 ：这是一部为专家或有抱负的机器人专家而设的精彩刺激性谈话电影，只是一个有趣的故事，讲述了制造机器人的好处。 Baymax 轻轻地看人类的作品。

• Ex Machina: A good reminder of why we need to be careful in this area. People will make robots that people can fall in love with, and I don’t think there’s a point giving people another so troubling vice.

  Ex Machina ：很好地提醒了我们为什么在这一方面需要谨慎。 人们会制造出人们会爱上的机器人，但我认为没有意义给人们带来另一个令人不安的恶习。

文章 (Articles)

• Researchers designed a robot face to avoid the uncanny valley, and it is hideous. Just don’t make a human face?

  研究人员设计了一个机器人脸来避开怪异的山谷，这很可怕。 只是不做人脸？

• Trying to make robots that are so human-like that we don’t notice they are robots. What could go wrong?

  试图制造出像人类一样的机器人，以至于我们没有注意到它们是机器人。 可能出什么问题了？

This was originally posted on my free newsletter on robotics & automation, Democratizing Automation.

这最初发布在我的免费新闻稿中，有关机器人技术与自动化， 民主自动化 。