Unfamiliar animal designs help social robot users suspend disbelief more easily
Kate Darling · a16z Podcast | To All the Robots I've Loved Before · Feb 26, 2019 · at 5:49
MIT Media Lab researcher Kate Darling explains why PARO, a therapeutic robot designed as a baby seal, effectively fosters emotional engagement without triggering uncanny expectations.
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“It's also not trying to be A cat or anything that you would be more intimately familiar with, because no one has actually held a baby seal before. Right. And so it's much easier to suspend your disbelief and just, like, go with it.”
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