Categories
Philosophy technology

Robotic Inflection: Ameca

Context: Ameca, “the future face of robotics,” is as freaky as you’d expect The image in the mirror of rationality is the machine. The suspension of disbelief in the essential non-personality of Ameca is a function of a psychological (as much as cultural or technological) compulsion to reveal, to unveil ourselves in the world and, […]

Categories
culture

On Moral Machines and Embodied Biases

Context: The Appearance of Robots Affects Our Perception of the Morality of Their Decisions Curious: “People consider moral decisions made by humanoid robots to be less ethically sound than when another human or traditional-looking robot makes the same decision.” The uncanny valley rides again. This is a particular instance of a general principle. The apperception […]

Categories
Psychology systems

An Organisational Uncanny Valley

The entities and artefacts we make “in our own image” include the abstractions and patterns through which we understand and organise the world and ourselves.