On 29 Dec 2015, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) revealed a new employee — Nadine, a receptionist working on campus. She looks almost like a human being with her brunette hair and soft skin.
Almost.
Except she is social robot.
And… She looks as creepy as hell.
Nadine is powered by smart programs similar to Siri from Apple and Cortana from Microsoft. According to a SciShow youtube video, the programs “run on massive servers that can handle huge amounts of information”.
These servers store vocabulary and speech recognition software, allowing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make records of what people have said and what it responded with. From there, it can learn from these previous records on how to communicate with humans.
Just look at that robot shake hands and answer human beings in this disturbing preview.
If robots and humanoids scare the heck out of you, you might be suffering from Automatonophobia — where people get disturbed or insecure after seeing wax figures and humanoids.
This discomfort is also known as uncanny valley, which arises from how something creates familiarity due to its humanlike appearance but falls short by a smidgen.
A perfect example is Nadine, who comes close to looking like a human. Because of this close resemblance, we start to pay attention to how she does not look human, causing our emotional response to dip severely — and resulting in our fear of Nadine.
Nadine’s smooth skin made of rubber makes her look like a human-like doll, while her enormous hands look like sausages. Not to mention her hair is made of real human hair.
You heard it, real human hair. Imagine it growing longer on its own.
Hey Jack Neo, how about making a horror movie starring Nadine next?
According to NTU, “Nadine can be a personal assistant in offices and homes in future. And she can be used as social companions for the young and the elderly”.
Er, thanks NTU, but no thanks.
There’s no way we would interact with something as creepy as that.
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Featured image via Youtube
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