OK, so I mentioned in class on Friday that I would show you some videos of robots to see how far we’ve come in the field, and to illustrate the concept of the Uncanny Valley that we will talk about later in the semester (so I’m not going to go into detail about it here, although you can read about it at the link).

The robots I am showing are not the familiar or cute ones that we see in movies, such as R2-D2, Johnny 5, or Wall-E, or even the ones we occasionally use in our houses, like the Roomba. The ones you will see below are the ones that are attempting to narrow the gap between human and robot, and work towards the goal of integrating robots into society and letting them act as helpful companions.

As you will see, we’re not there yet, but we’re getting eerily close. Take a look at the videos below, see what you think, and offer your feedback in the comments. And remember, you can only make something that isn’t human look human to a point, after which it actually starts to look *less* human. And we’ll learn why later.