Rethinking the Uncanny Valley: Feelings of Eeriness, Diversity/Mutation, and Performativity

• In Event: Gender, Bodies, and Robots in Everyday Life

Abstract

The uncanny valley is a famous hypothesis in robotics to explain people's feelings of eeriness when people see an object's resemblance to a human being. Many scholars have been offering explanations to this hypothesis, i.e., disease hypothesis, fear hypothesis, and so on. Meanwhile, many roboticists have been trying to build a humanoid robot which overcomes the Uncanny Valley. However, I would like to give another thought to rethink people's feelings of eeriness. I think the feelings of eeriness is from lack of diversity of humanoid body forms. If this society allows diverse forms of humanoid robots, the feelings of eeriness will be reduced, even disappeared.

I will take Judith Bulter's performativity to explain that humanoid robot's body and actions perform the body norms which refer to normality and abnormality. Social norms regarding normality and abnormality of the bodies define body forms and their social meanings. By creating the diversity of body forms and performances, the bodies of the humanoid robots have the potential to penetrate the dualism of the body forms. This thought might co-respond to the diversity of gender relating performativity. Hence, I will make a connection between the uncanny valley and performativity to discuss diversity/mutation in gender, bodies, and social norms.

Author

• Kuan-Hung Lo, Virginia Tech