Hi Sam! I came across an interesting blogpost on robots and empathy …

Hi Manuel! So now you want to chat about robots? 😅😅         

Yep! 😁

 .. Be my guest!                                                                                 

So this blog was all about Uncanny Valley and how we relate to robots 🤖

Yeah, uncanny valley really is a problem 🤔...   we really want to make robots that people can relate to, but it’s hard!

Seems like it makes more sense not to try …?

How do you mean?  🤔 🤔                                                               

Well, you’re the expert, but I seem to understand that it is easier to make a friendly, relatable robot that doesn’t look like a human at all

Ah, ok, yes, in a sense, yes …                                                         

… but …? 😏

For some tasks a human form makes no sense at all, e.g. industrial robots 🤖

Right 👍

But in most places where humans and robots work together, everything is built for humans

Ooh, that is a problem!

So we need robots that can interact with stuff made for humans.

Mmh, I see, so body and limbs etc. need to be human shaped

Doorknobs are made for hands ✋, keyboards and switches for fingers ☝️, stairs for legs 🦵, etc.

So that’s why an artificial human would be a good appraoch

In many cases that’s exactly what you need, but there are lots of reasons why a human shape makes sense!