2008/11/8 Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2008/11/in-search-of-machines-of-loving-grace.html


On the Ishiguru robot and uncanny valley I think the simulation which
we're creating of other people is closely based upon the sort of
multi-modal integration going on in our own brains - the "dynamic
core".  So seeing the Ishiguru robot as a static photo and seeing it
moving are handled by different regions of the visual cortex, and we
normally expect there to be a certain characteristic type of
synchronisation going on between these two areas, based upon the way
that we ourselves move (maybe with an individual specific delta
applied, as in eigenfaces).  When there is a slight synchronisation
mismatch (you could also call it a prediction error) we get the
uncanny feeling.

An extreme form of this mismatch is the nausea felt by users of full
immersion virtual reality, or car sickness.  Here your eyes are
telling you that you're moving in a certain way (visual
odometry/structure from motion) but this doesn't tally with what your
vestibular system is telling you (you're sitting still).  I think that
there's a fair chance that the same mechanism responsible for VR
nausea is also responsible for uncanny valley sensations.  Of course
we all know that the makers of horror movies actively exploit the
uncanny effect, and I could go out even further on a speculative limb
and suggest that some forms of post traumatic stress experienced by
soldiers after hand-to-hand combat originates from sustained exposure
to prediction error specifically related to modeling other
individuals.


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agi
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