Robot as Humanoid

It’s hard enough to make a functional, reliable robot. Many
people also want to make those robots in our image. That’s a
tough needle to thread. Often, the most efficient design isn’t
the most human-like one. But that isn’t stopping us from reaching
for those humanoid robots. 

Professor Shigeki Sugano argues in favor of creating human-shaped
robots. But it’s such an enduring challenge, we’ve come up with a
name for it: the uncanny valley. Evan Ackerman walks us through
the uncanny valley’s treacherous terrain. Deanna Dezern shares
how she’s connected to her robot companion. And Dor Skuler
explains how he deliberately avoided making his robots look like
humans.


If you want to read up on some of our research on humanoid
robots, you can check out all our bonus material over at
redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode
transcript.