Top five creepiest robots ever devised in alarming video
Maybe we've watched Terminator too often, but 'advances' in robotics give us the shakes. Our video presents the five most creepy androids.
What do brain surgery, warfare, building cars and vacuuming your house have in common? They're all increasingly performed by robots. While artificially intelligent metal companions like Star Wars' C-3PO may still be a long way off, robots are steadily creeping into the workforce in 2012 like never before. And why not? They don't take holidays, happily work 24 hours a day and you don't even need to feed them.
But as scientists build ever-more lifelike androids to do their bidding, we've can't help but notice a lot of these robots are a bit, well, creepy. Maybe we've just watched Terminator and Blade Runner too many times, but whenever we see 'advances' in robotics such as the robot mouth and dental training robot we break out in a cold sweat.
When we hear about BigDog the headless robotic pitbull and the NANO Hummingbird surveillance drone, we start to fear for our humanity. All it takes is for Skynet to become self-aware and initiate a nuclear holocaust, and we'd be battling these things among the ruins of our once-proud civilisation.
There's actually a scientific theory explaining why people get so creeped out by lifelike robots. The Uncanny Valley hypothesis basically says when a human replica starts to look and act almost, but not perfectly, like an actual human being, it causes a reponse of revulsion among human observers -- the same response you get when looking at a corpse or a zombie!
So by way of warning we're counting down five of the most sinister robots we've found on the Internet. Click play to see who will take the coveted title of 'most creepy android'. If we had our way, all the robots on this list would self-terminate without delay.
Do you agree, or are there other mechanical abominations you'd like to see on the list? Let us know in the comments below, or via our Facebook page.