Toddlers leap the uncanny valley

A PNAS paper in which Tanaka and co let their expensive robot QR10 loose in a kindergarten and the kids bonded with it. Nobody got exterminated, or terminated, or had to be defused with paradoxes, or needed to consult their copy of Asimov's Three Laws. And nobody had to claim insurance when the oppressed humans rose against their clanking overlords. Robots among us; I always wanted to live in a future like this! I particularly like the experimental controls, a teddy that the kids ignored because there was also an inanimate robot to hug as a surrogate while interacting with the apparently fragile QR10. Plushies are passe in this future. When the robot detected its batteries getting low it would lie down and the kids put a blanket over it and wished it night-nights. The Supplementary Info movies aren't online yet but I'm expecting heartwarming. It's interesting how limited in behaviour (and how inhuman-looking but smooth-moving) a robot can be and achieve acceptance - bridging the uncanny valley, if it ever existed, is entirely doable, particularly if you get 'em young enough. Not only is this progress in robotics but also in social behaviours: these kids will no doubt grow up to be kinder to the toaster than those of us raised in an era when appliances knew their place… QR10's playtimes fit right alongside forecaster/futurist Paul Saffo's recent article in Harvard Business Review [requires payment], in which he once more repeated his claim that robots are the Next Big Thing as soon as we get a "Steve Jobs of robotics". I hope so.