The answer might surprise Sci-fi fans.
If you wish you had a robot buddy because you don't like people, science says you might not be as into it as you think.
Human-Android relationships might not be as effortless as they seem in the movies.
Researchers have discovered that while humans enjoy a robot that is a little like us, once they hit a certain level of human-ness, our feelings change.
We prefer ones with some human aspects in real life, think C3PO, but Bishop in Aliens kind of creeps us out.
A study by Emory Health Sciences found that the more lifelike a robot is, the more it pushes us into "the uncanny valley."
A term to describe the theory that subconsciously, when people see a robot with overtly human features, we feel like it has a mind (I take this to mean consciousness).
According to this theory, the sense that a machine could have a mind creeps us out.
It's more complicated than that, but the result's the same: we don't like it.
We subconsciously pick up subtle cues that tell us something's not right.
Even though we're constantly projecting our human qualities onto intimate objects, remember "My Strange Obsession," where the guy married his car? Or how you might see a face in a gnarly old tree. When that human connection is missing, we know.
It's called anthropomorphization, and although we tend to do this, research suggests there's something different going on here.
Researchers showed participants pictures of three types of faces:
- human faces
- machine-like robot faces
- android faces similar to humans
They rated each for "aliveness."
Through a complex process of analyzing the pictures and how long people looked at them, scientists discovered that humans could almost instantly distinguish a human or robot face (no surprise there).
But although we initially anthropomorphize the android, we can tell something's off within milliseconds.
We seem to have a built-in mechanism that tells us something's wrong when someone doesn't give off the warmth we need to feel comfortable, and we're so attuned to it that we can even pick it up from pictures — and quickly.
We become uncomfortable and slightly repulsed when someone doesn't radiate humanity. That coldness sends us into "the uncanny valley."
It could be a kind of evolutionary warning we've developed to tell us when someone doesn't have empathy because psychopaths and sociopaths can be dangerous.
Here are some famous examples of fictional robots. See if you can find the ones that would creep you out:
- C3PO: Star Wars
- Rosie: The Jetsons
- Terminator: The Terminator
- Baymax: Big Hero 6
- Lance Bishop: Aliens
- Data: Star Trek Generations
- David: A.I. Artificial Intelligence
In movies and on T.V., friendships and relationships with human-like androids seem possible, even likely.
It makes sense that the more human a robot looks, the more we'd like it.
But science tells us it's not that simple because our brains have a mechanism that detects human "warmth," and we don't like it when we can't feel it.
So if you're buying a robot, it might be a good idea to get one that's a little more robot-like and keep things professional.
Because if you're looking for a robot spouse or best friend, you might be wasting your money; if it's too lifelike, you might not be able to get the relationship off the ground.
But at least when you're breaking up, you won't be lying when you say it's not them. It's you.