Grok Robots

The “uncanny valley” is Masahiro Mori’s hypothesis which states:

that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.-Mori, Masahiro (1970). Bukimi no tani The uncanny valley (K. F. MacDorman & T. Minato, Trans.). Energy, 7(4), 33–35. 

The media latches on to the first part — “as a robot becomes more humanlike in appearance and motion” — often. Most recently, Simroid the dental patient robot got this sort of attention.With the recent popularity of the BigDog video, I think the hypothesis needs amending. While BigDog looks more like an AT-AT Walker than your old pal Fido, its movement is nothing short of, well, uncanny. This was enough to activate the empathy response in humans worldwide:

I thought it was cute, and I felt bad for a second when it was kicked.

Something about the way the bot moves elicits sympathy in the viewer - its motions are so animal-like they throw you. When the researcher kicks BigDog to demonstrate how it can regain its balance, my first reaction was one of sympathy for “the animal”

On second viewing, I’m incredibly creeped out at how sad it makes me when BigDog gets kicked. 

At this rate if they just added a wagging tail and a machine gun, BigDog would be unstoppable.