Robotics and politics: the "uncanny valley"

[bananas]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/opinion/blow-obama-in-the-valley.html?_r=1

Obama in the Valley
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: August 19, 2011
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In 1970, the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the phrase “uncanny valley.” In the field of robotics, and increasingly in computer animation, it refers to the theory that people feel good about robots — up to a point. When they start to look almost real, but not quite, we experience an eerie and unsettling sense of revulsion.

I have often thought that there must be an uncanny valley of politics, a point at which particular politicians rouse our discomfort because there’s something about them that people connect with, but there’s something else about them — intangible, unbelievable and not relatable — that produces a sense of unease.

It can be found in the “Artificial Intelligence” of Michele Bachmann and her pull-the-string-in-the-middle-of-my-back compulsion to repeat the same red-meat responses no matter the question. It’s the Buzz Lightyear-come-to-life bravado of Rick Perry, complete with delusions of grandeur and accomplishment. And it’s pretty much everything about the mechanical “I, Republican” Mitt Romney.

But one person I never thought would fall into this valley was Barack Obama, the charismatic candidate who electrified the electorate in 2008 and whom many saw as the fulfillment of the dream of the even-more-electrifying Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet here Obama is, down in the valley, struggling to connect with the American people and failing, increasingly coming across as dispassionate to some and outright revolting to others.

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