Original Source:
Nowadays, industrial robots are increasingly recognized as the driving force behind reductions in factory personnel. However, as is well known, these robots just extend, contract, and rotate their arms; without faces or legs, they do not look human. Their design policy is clearly based on functionality. From this standpoint, the robots must perform functions similar to those of human factory workers, but whether they look similar does not matter. Thus, given their lack of resemblance to human beings, in general, people hardly feel any affinity for them. (Note: However, industrial robots are considerably closer in appearance to humans than general machinery, especially in their arms.) If we plot the industrial robot on a graph of affinity versus human likeness, it lies near the origin in Figure 1.
In contrast, a toy robot's designer may focus more on the robot's appearance than its functions. Consequently, despite its being a sturdy mechanical figure, the robot will start to have a roughly human-looking external form with a face, two arms, two legs, and a torso. Children seem to feel deeply attached to these toy robots. Hence, the toy robot is shown more than halfway up the first hill in Figure 1.
Paraphrased:
In factories, machines and robots are the leading cause of employment reductions. Although these machines are replacing humans, they do not look human. They exist to perform certain jobs and aesthetics do not play into their designs. Although they perform functions similar to that of a human worker, we do not have any emotional response to them. This would have them located far to the left of the uncanny valley.
Toys, on the other hand, are often designed with the intention of triggering an emotional response. Despite a toy robot being mechanical inside, they have human-like features which children will respond to. This places them further up the graph, but still not triggering an uncanny response.
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