Early Sign of the Inevitable Robot Uprising

Valley of the Uncanny Robots!

This company sells realistic masks modeled after your face. So you can finally see what you look like? (read post here)

Which totally reminds me of that one scene in Mission Impossible 2. You know what I mean!

Next we have a robot singer/dancer. Strangely enough, the weirdest part of this video was when I realized that the back-up dancers are NOT robots. Oops.



Last, but oh god not least, is a glimpse of what will soon be replacing meat puppets:

Uncanny Valley: Dancing Dog

So my friend Rob has commented multiple times that he feels that Labradoodles (lab/poodle dog mixes) bear an uncanny resemblance to a person in a dog costume. This always cracked me up, because Labradoodles do indeed have a big old muppety goofiness about them.

With this in mind, I happened to find a video of a dog dancing the merengue. This sounds cute until you see the dog and realize that it dances better than you or I can or ever will. I started to freak out a little as I realized that as much as Rob and I joke about Labradoodles being people in dog costumes, the dancing dog really does look like a person is inside there somewhere. Or maybe the wagging tail gives it away and it really is just a dog. Or maybe it's a robot?

Uncanny Valley: Handsome Guy Mask

As many of you probably know, something I find really interesting is the uncanny valley. After I learned about it, I started spotting items that fall into said valley more and more often. 

One great example is this special effects mask, demonstrated below.

Imagine if you saw someone wearing that in public. You would probably notice that something was off, right? Would you know what was off, exactly? I'm not sure that I would, but I would be creeped out. It reminds me of the time I was in the Milwaukee Art Museum and finally realized that the cleaning guy in the corner was not in fact real and was actually an exhibit. My mind exploded a little bit because I'd really, really like to think I can tell the difference between things that are living and things that are not, but sometimes I can't. 

Oh jesus...what if nothing is real??!