The first of a two part series, Robots that care discusses one of the core questions in the field of social robotics, what should they look like? The continuing debate is whether robots should look a lot like us or just a bit like us. This issue has given rise to the uncanny valley hypothesis, the theory that humans react well to increasingly anthropomorphic robots until the resemblance suddenly becomes disturbing and revolting; on the other side of the valley the resemblance achieves perfection at which point the revulsion goes away again. This is difficult ground to traverse, not least because humans and their reactions are highly adaptable.
Link to programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0150m8m
