02_IN_DByrne_m&a:Maquetación 1
26/6/08
16:31
Página 82
Song for Julio, 2008. Robot’s internal circuits
social group. Hanson and others dispute the scientific veracity of the uncanny valley, but I think no one can doubt the strange and weird emotions that well up when confronted by one of these entities. Knowing that singing elicits an emotional reaction from a listener and observer, I sense that encountering Julio might push some very odd buttons. I remember that my first encounter with Hanson’s robot made me rethink what it means to see, to look. We think of seeing and looking as something optical, something the eyes do. But actually seeing something, and recognizing it, is a lot more than that—it is the act of “naming” the thing the eyes are locking on to. It involves other meta brain functions that often have nothing to do
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