This episode is a wonderful example of the uncanny valley concept. The uncanny valley concept suggests that things that appear human but are not exactly like real humans elicit feelings of repulsion and eeriness. When something appears strangely familiar but is not it triggers feelings of uncanniness. With AI Ash, Martha was very happy with his system until she noticed small changes that with anyone else would likely go unnoticed. AI Ash was unable to recognize inside jokes because they had not been posted online. He was unable to react accordingly in situations, that required human emotions. He even looked like the best version of himself because "we tend not to post unflattering pictures of ourselves."
Feelings like these come from not wanting to be deceived. What is deceit? Deceit is defined as the act of purposely concealing the truth from the person or group receiving the information. With deceit, there is always intent and then there is lack of understanding. Humans do not like to be deceived because once deceived there is a lack of trust which is tied in with feeling uneasy in certain situations. With computer-generated imagery, for example, the purpose is to make the people watching believe that the images being depicted are real which is what sometimes inspires the uncomfortable feelings.
When asked about whether or not robots should be able to walk among humans without the humans express knowledge most people respond negatively. They are not able to answer, however, why this makes them so uneasy. I believe if prompted long enough all arguments against robots not having accountability for their identities all lead to the same conclusion.
4 comments:
I honeslty don't know how i would react if i saw a robot walking around. I think I would notice the difference but i guess i wont know until it happens. Scary thought!
I think people having a negative response to the idea of androids or robots walking among us disguised is mostly because the idea was not presented to them very well. I think when you can present the positives of a large robot workforce like in terms of income benefits like taxing robotic labor, people will change their tune. Personally, it's a great comfort knowing that if the majority of work is automated, we can avoid many forms of menial/manual labor and transition to a universal income.
I agree that people do respond negatively to being asked if robots should be able to walk among humans without the humans knowledge. AI Ash really does show the uncanny valley. The initial response is definitely something I can agree with because having someone I know died standing right in front of me would be very creepy.
People are just generally afraid of the unfamiliar. Androids at this point in time are unfamiliar to most people. The idea of Siri would probably freak people out in the 50's but now its so common that we don't think twice about asking her to set an alarm.
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