Currently, talking to a face is the ultimate guarantee that you are communicating with a human (and on a subconscious level makes you try to relate, empathise, etc.). If humanoid robot technology eventually surpasses the Uncanny Valley, discovering that I’m talking to a humanoid with an LLM and that my intuitions had been betrayed would undermine the instinctive trust I give to the other party when I see a human face. This would degrade my social interactions across the board, because I’d live in constant suspicion that the humans I was talking to weren’t actually human.
It is for this reason I think it should be the law that humanoid robots must be clearly differentiated from humans. Or at least that people should have the right to opt out from encountering realistic-looking humanoids.
🙋♂️
Do anthropomorphic animal looking robots count? If so, I disagree.
On a serious note, I do think it’s pointless to make them indistinguishable from a human; it’s a minor comfort that comes with huge risks and problems. Having a humanoid shape is good, because it allows them to do a full range of things instead of a singular task they were completely designed around. I mean, our bodies are pretty cool for doing shit, so a robot with the same kind of body would be even better. But they don’t need a face. Or skin. Unless it’s a sex bot. Then you might want that.