Uncanny Valley Authority

The subclass Humanoid is one of the largest areas of robotic inquiry, weighted towards the speculative realm. Authors and roboticists alike devote remarkable amounts of time and resource to the development of Humanoid forms. The first recognizeable humanoid robots began to appear in written form in the late 19th century. Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam wrote “L’Ève future” (The Future Eve or Tomorrow’s Eve), introducing the character of Hadalay, a mechanical woman referred to as an ‘android’. L. Frank Baum introduced creations such as Tik-Tok, and the Tin Woodman, mechanical men that presage the visualization of metallic robots. Stepping into the 20th century, the first film robots appear, with the Maschinenmensch of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, portrayed as a metallic female robot in 1927. The Flash Gordon serials from the 30s also featured robots made of metal. Elektro, the first “functional” humanoid robot made its debut in 1937. A promotional item made by Westinghouse, Elektro was skinned in aluminum, smoked, talked (via a phonograph), and moved about on rollers in its feet. What it lacked in automous intelligence it made up for in the “wow” factor.

The Humanoid subclass is divided into three categories, Anthropomorphic, Android, and Gynoid. Anthropomorphic robots use a humanlike form, but do not appear as human, retaining a machinelike quality in their presentation. Androids are robots designed to mimic human males. Gynoids are robots designed to mimic human females. The Android and Gynoid categories represent the only gender segregated areas of the taxonomy. They are presented separately because while machines themselves do not require a gender to function, gender is a present force that shapes all robots are imagined and created. To assign all robots designed to mimic humans the category of android would obscure the nature of representation of these types of robots.

Anthropomorphic robots, in their human-like forms made of metal, plastic and other materials are often the category referenced as both the archetypal and stereotypical robot. In speculative fiction they often carry the narrative of a future gone awry; of technological disaster, and human loss of control over destiny. Favored over all other representations of robots in cinematic tradition, anthropomorphic robots commonly embody the uneasy relationship between humans and a technological state. They also are employed to examine enduring themes that bind robots symbolically to notions of servitude and labor. From the popular Robby the Robot of 1950’s Sci-Fi movies, to C-3P0 of the Star Wars series, anthropomorphic robots operate as buddies and foils, as close others, where issues of trust must be weighed carefully. The human relationship to anthropomorphic robots combines dependency and distrust, reflecting the larger perspective of technological representation embodied by the anthropomorphic form.

Significant development efforts in robotics employ anthropomorphic robot forms. Because of an intrinsic function of human recognition, robots that are “life-like” but not quite believable, are registered as creepy, strange, and ultimately rejected by the humans they are intended to interact with. To escape falling into the Uncanny Valley, these robots are often deliberately left in an abbreviated anthropomorphic form, using only the base details of scale, bipedal design, and highly abstracted faces. Leaving the machine more as machine, refuting the Promethean urge to create to closely in human likeness, is paradoxically easier for most humans to handle. This strategy has been applied to robots like Honda’s Asimo, and continues as part of the development of robotics intended to operate in human spaces.

The Promethean urge to create robots that precisely reproduce human characteristics, that exhibit intelligence, appear human, and cannot be discerned readily from a human drives many roboticists. Equally fueling works of fiction, where both Android and Gynoid type robots are staples, robots that realistically mimic humans are a major point of philosophical speculation. In the physical realm these types of robots are hampered by the “creep” factor. In the speculative realm, they become doppelgangers of humanity, close Others that explore themes of difference, and the philosophical boundary of what is human, and what might have a soul. The narratives diverge dramatically in the two categories of Android and Gynoid.

Within the scope of this taxonomic approach, the term android is significantly limited in definition. The Android, one of the oldest terms applied to robots, is a construction designed to precisely resemble the human male. Early usage of the word, even with the use of andro- as the prefix, was applied to both masculine and feminine representations of robots that are made in a human-like form, and in some references is considered synonymous with automaton. A staple construction of the speculative, the android is commonly used to explore the division between autonomous intelligence that is machine, and that which is human. Often parted on the ability to express emotion, Androids are tasked to become irrational, illogical beings to be considered human. Few speculative androids escape the narrative associated with Pinocchio, the desire to be real. Whether robots can have a soul or not, and to what length an intelligent machine will go to approximate that human ideal, provides the underlying tension of the narrative. From the transitional character of Isaac Asimov’s Bicentennial Man, Andrew, to Star Trek’s Lt. Commander Data, android representation echoes not scientific endeavor, but philosophical and religious notions of human superiority. Only the human can be real, therefore, machines must desire to be human to become real.

In contrast to the representation of the masculine android, the feminine gynoid is not tasked with becoming human, or becoming real. Gynoids, humanoid robots designed to precisely resemble the human female, instead are portrayed as objects to be controlled. Where the fictive android becomes a vehicle for philosophic conjecture, the fictive gynoid becomes an object for sexual desire, a recasting of the slave automaton designed for the comfort of men. Whether looking at the example of the Stepford Wives, Westworld, or the confusing tangle of Blade Runner, this stereotype runs deep in speculative fiction.

Gynoids in the physical realm share some of the characteristics of ones from the speculative. Many of the experimental humanoids are designed as gynoids, more commonly found than realistic androids. Much of the development is from Japan or Korea. Perhaps chosen because women are not perceived to be as threatening as men, these gynoids are presented as stylized, stereotypical visions of women, even voicing concern about their figures. (Actroid DER 2, from Kokoro, a subsidiary of San Rio) Still, most efforts in physical realm gynoids are governed by the “creep” factor, and face substantial hurdles to become anything more than the 21st century recreation of 19th century automatons.