When You Have Robots, You Don't Need Photoshop

With all the recent controversy over Rachel Leigh Cook speaking out against the manipulation of images, I was surprised to find this recent video of an extremely realistic robot:

As a former 3D animator, I can tell you that there is an immense amount of science involved in trying to recreate human movement and facial expression. I remember studying how to animate eye saccades to make more realistic facial animation, learning about the structure of facial muscle and how it produces facial expressions, and a few things about the science of facial expression recognition. From that perspective I can really appreciate the work that went into making this robot move and express more realistically while effectively (at least I think so) overcoming the Uncanny Valley problem.

But from the point of view of an image maker, it got me thinking about what kind of media controversies the future might hold. Will models ever have to compete against robots like this? What happens when you have mannequins that can move and walks realistically? How will that affect the commercial industry? How will that affect our perception of attractive body image? Will Elite, Ford and Wilhelmina have robot divisions in the future?

I know it sounds crazy (and incredibly nerdy), but consider how much science and technology already goes into making people look pretty. That's not even getting into things like makeup, surgery, dieting, and all the other ways in which tech and the body come together in front of a camera.

But the robot invasion probably isn't going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, I'll settle for good old fashion computer graphics when it comes to distorting my perception of reality.