I had an interesting conversation yesterday about robots. It started innocently enough with a mention of Wall-e, an upcoming movie from Pixar about a poor little robot stuck on Earth who makes friends with aliens, or something like that. Check out the trailer

Cute, right? Wall-e looks downright hug-able. This little wheeled automaton (big word, I know) is just the latest and most extreme example of the personification of robots. It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it. Why would this robot have eyes, and arms, and fingers?

I think there are a couple reasons we tend to associate human qualities with robots. First, robots are human creations, often built in order to serve as proxies for actual people. This might be because having people do the job is too dangerous (robotic space exploration), too expensive (an assembly line), or too imprecise (medical procedures). Secondly, as humans ourselves, we’re bound to be biased toward a human-centric view of the world.

I’m most intrigued by how the personification of robots has proceeded in space exploration. On the space shuttle, one of the most useful tools is a crane-like object known as the “Canada arm”. Also, take another look at our friend Wall-e:

Now here’s the Mars Exploration Rover:

See some similiarities? The rover has two cameras (eyes) atop a tall, extended mast (neck) and an appendage (arm) that takes more detailed images. Are these featuers really the best designs to tackle the tasks at hand? Why not 3 cameras, or 4? I also recall some news reports that when Opportunity was experiencing communication difficulties early in its mission, much of the American public went into mild depression, mourning the “death” of the rover. Discussing “death” suggests that the rover was alive in the first place.

I think there is a lot to this. Are we encouraged by NASA to form emotional attachments to their spacecraft as some sort of way to raise public opinion? Are we emotionally involved because we see these robots as some sort of intrepid explorer making sacrifices for the sake of science? Are we predisposed to an emotional response because we innately associate with explorers?

Well, with Phoenix three days away (who’s getting excited?!), hopefully you aren’t too attached – wouldn’t want you to get hurt.