Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Public’S Perception Of Humanlike Robots: Online Social Commentary Reflects An Appearance-Based Uncanny Valley, A General Fear Of A “Technology Takeover”, And The Unabashed Sexualization Of Female-Gendered Robots, Megan K. Strait, Cynthia Aguillon, Virginia Contreras, Noemi Garcia

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Towards understanding the public’s perception of humanlike robots, we examined commentary on 24 YouTube videos depicting social robots ranging in human similarity – from Honda’s Asimo to Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoids. In particular, we investigated how people have responded to the emergence of highly humanlike robots (e.g., Bina48) in contrast to those with more prototypically-“robotic” appearances (e.g., Asimo), coding the frequency at which the uncanny valley versus fears of replacement and/or a “technology takeover” arise in online discourse based on the robot’s appearance. Here we found that, consistent with Masahiro Mori’s theory of the uncanny valley, people’s commentary reflected an aversion …