Devil in Disguise

8.75” x 6”

About the contributors:

Tommy Kha is a Chinese-Vietnamese American photographer, working between New York City and Memphis, Tennessee. He likes to think he takes after his great aunt, who “read too many books and went crazy.” 

Karl Fredric MacDorman is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. He was previously an Assistant Professor at Osaka University’s School of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cambridge University in 1997 and his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. He has published over 100 papers on human–robot interaction, machine learning, and cognitive science. His main research interests include the emergence and grounding of symbols, cognitive development robotics, android science, and the uncanny valley.

Masahiro Mori is Professor Emeritus at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he led robotics research for nearly two decades. He is also President of the Mukta Institute and Honorary President of the Robotics Society of Japan. Mori completed his doctorate in engineering at the University of Tokyo and has served on their faculty, among others. Mori is widely celebrated for introducing the concept of the uncanny valley in 1970, which has influenced fields ranging from humanoid robotics and computer animation to perceptual psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He is known for his thoughts on robotics and Buddhism, as detailed in The Buddha in the Robot and in many other books. He has contributed greatly to robotics and automation research and education, founding some of the earliest robotics contests. He has won numerous awards from learned societies, the NHK Broadcasting Culture Award in 1992, the Medal of Honor in 1994, and the Order of the Rising Sun in 1999.