Had a GREAT time in Philadelphia this past weekend, where I attended DogCon4 and delivered an address to Neumann University on “The Uncanny Valley.” MANY THANKS to Neumann University for supporting my trip, Dr. Bill Hamilton for inviting/hosting/handling, Dave Bullis for running the media, and of course, all my friends at Raw Dog Screaming Press for integrating this lecture into their literary convention. It was great to meet everyone, and to see old friends throughout the weekend (from students I met during my last visit to speak at Neumann to buddies in gold morphsuits and Seton Hill alums).
If you missed this talk, my next one on the subject will take place at a PARSEC gathering in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Library (Squirrel Hill) on Dec 12th at 1:30pm. DETAILS.
Some tracking of the event itself is on twitter, with the hashtag #popuncanny. I will add more photos/info here on this post as I gather it (please share photos if you have them).
Videos we examined during the lecture included:
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“Behold the Future – Humanoid Robot Asana,” Uphigh Productions (2015): https://youtu.be/FlTTPtt_8xk
“DARPA Robots Falling Down,” IEEE Spectrum (2015): https://youtu.be/g0TaYhjpOfo
“Robot,” FedEx Office (2015): https://youtu.be/1SKRSKXOh0s
“Doll Face,” Andrew Huang (2007): https://youtu.be/zl6hNj1uOkY
Ex Machina Featurette, Alex Garland (2015): https://youtu.be/fVQn-dahc7w
Robots & androids we discussed at the lecture included:
Key sources referenced in (or related to) the talk included:
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The Uncanny Valley
Primary source: “The Uncanny Valley,” Masihiro Mori (1970)
“Mortality Salience and the Uncanny Valley,” .pdf, Karl MacDorman (2005)
“Monkey Visual Behavior Falls Into the Uncanny Valley,” Steckenfinger and Ghazanfar (2009).
“Navigating a Social World With Robot Partners,” Mathur and Reichling (2016)
“The Uncanny Lover,” NY Times (11 June 2015)
Related: Previous posts on The Uncanny Valley on this blog
Terror Management Theory :
Primary Source: The Denial of Death Ernest Becker (1973)
“Evidence for Terror Management Theory: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values,” Rosenblatt and Greenberg, et. al. (1989)
Related: Terror Management Theory central at U Missouri-Columbia
Predictive Coding:
“Your Brain on Androids”
“The Thing That Should Not Be” (Aygin, et. al, 2011)
Mirror Neurons and Robot Empathy:
“The Anthropomorphic Brain” .pdf, Gazolla (2007)
“Anthropomorphism Influences Perception of Computer-Animated Characters’ Actions,” Chaminade, et. al., (2007).
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