Robotics as Beings of Frightening Accuracy

The "Be Right Back" episode of Black Mirror gives us a glimpse of the uncanny valley issue discussed in class. The issue is that as droids resembling humans become more human like, people have more positive reactions toward these droids until they reach a certain point where their human likeness becomes creepy. However, once they become so human like that they blend in with other humans, they overcome their creepiness.

The rise of robotics in recent years has been truly fascinating to watch. On one hand, there are the engineers that want to get the aesthetics of the droids to be as human like as possible, such as the Geminoid DK. On the other hand, there are engineers working on developing the actual movement and utility of these droids, such as the Atlas robot, which had a showcase video posted earlier this year. Robots such as the Atlas are much less intimidating since their purpose seems to be for doing physical work rather than appearing to be human, but the Geminoid DK does have a galling appearance. Although the Geminoid DK looks extraordinarily human, its creepiness comes from its jarring movements, especially with its facial features. Considering the uncanny valley issue, how does "Be Right Back" relate to our current state with robotics?

The ultimate hindrance when discussing "Be Right Back" is that Ash the human and Ash the robot are played by the same actor. Of course, for the sake of filming the show, that's necessary, but it doesn't help the suspension of disbelief when discussing the uncanny valley. That being said, watching Ash the robot go from a text messaging service to voice messaging to being an actual physical being was a little frightening. Being set in some distant future, it means that civilization came to a point at which it could relatively easily recreate a person. That point would be the point of singularity. With how easily civilization could recreate a person, the ultimate goal of life would then be to live a life that is both worthy of recreating and that can easily be recreated faithfully (such as being as accurate as possible when sending emails, texts, photos, etc.). Knowing that that was the goal of life would feel devoid of much meaning.

While the rise of robotics is fascinating to which, hitting the point of singularity is unsettling, as the outcomes of singularity are incredibly unpredictable.