Topic: Robots   We Love them, Crave them, and occasionally, Fear them.  The week, we dive in to the topic of Robots, both what they mean to us in Fiction, but also in real life, and perhaps where does the fact and fiction blend together or doesn’t?  Robots are really cool though.     How Define a Robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.  Typically, Robots can appear human in nature, but come in many shapes and forms.  We almost always see them as tools, rarely as individuals and almost never as people.   In our real world, they’re basically machines that do specialized mechanical tasks, as opposed to calculations or executables like a computer; but we expect these machines to be piloted by a computer, or atleast act based off one, but can also be piloted/controlled by humans directly.     Robots in Real Life In our modern world, we adore and want Robots.  The ideal for modern society is to have Robots do all the hard and difficult physical tasks for us, while we do either less, or nothing at all.  It’s a dream world, as I’m certain we’ll still very much be a part of interacting and being a part of the world, but it will take some time to get even close to it.   As it is now, our common modern days Robots can be found in a number of places: Our Home – Rombas and other vacuum robots Hospitals – there are some robotic surgery machines Food Service – There are some robots that actually make your good, while others clean dishes Farming – There are some robots and automation in the Farming Sector Warehouse and Factories – For years, we’ve been simplify tasks for robots to do for us that would otherwise be too dangerous, to difficult, or too slow for a human to do.  But in a number of our warehouses, it’s robots that managing the inventory, stacking and putting it away as necessary. Military – Various Drones and bomb disposal robots exist to aid the military and keep humans out of harm’s way.     Uncanny Valley The Idea of the Uncanny Valley is this notion that as things, particularly robots, are particularly less human, we tend to like them a lot more, but as time goes on, and the Robots become more human in quality and nature, we tend to like them a lot less, to the point of down right hating them.  But as time continues, and robots get more sophisticated and advanced, our like for them begins to rise once again.  The low point, when humans actually start dislike and are disgusted by the robot is like a valley, and thus where the term comes from.    The notion as to why we like them when they aren’t that human, is that their human like qualities stand out much easier, and we tend to imprint ourselves on to the robots, allowing us to empathize with them.  It’s why R2D2 is one of the most popular Robots in fiction, despite having very little human characteristics in form and shape.  This is why Robots tend to look simple in nature in cartoons, and early robots aren’t too human on any particular level.   Conversely, when we try to make human like robots, we tend to dislike them, and are even hateful of them.  The reason for this is that when we get to more human looking robots, as humans, we’re able to see the difference and able to notice when something isn’t quite right.  It could be the way they move, the texture of their skin, their little gestures, and potentially even their eyes.  It looks off and we can’t put our finger on it.  When it’s less human looking, we’re willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, even see its positives more than its negatives.  Its why I think some models and actors look too good, and it’s off setting to me, like they look too good.   Eventually, as the robots get more life-like and sophisticated, the elements that once made us hate the robots begins to disappear, as the boundary begin to disappear and the human qualities are like our own.    This Uncanny Valley is also seen in a lot of early C