Why Do Crash Dummies Have Faces?
The unnatural angle of the head caught my attention. The neck was bent back over the right shoulder in a way that reminded me of an ancient sculpture of agony or passion. The caption of the social media post said the object was a World War II parachute dummy.
But why does it have a face, I wondered — especially like that, with such detail? The eyes, with lids half-parted, seem to gaze into eternity. The strong brows and chin express calm strength, and the full lips are reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David.
A quick web search revealed that parachute dummies were used as decoys in some World War II battles. The dummies were dropped at one site to divert the attention of enemy troops, drawing attention and fire to protect the real troops.
As I discovered, most parachute dummies were faceless and consisted of straw-filled burlap in the general approximation of a human body, though smaller. They were called Ruperts. Yet a few dummies had faces painted on them, even though enemy soldiers on the ground wouldn’t be able to make out facial features as they watched the dummies float to earth. The intricate facial features served no apparent purpose.
Why was this dummy made with a face if it was not necessary? Who took the time to sculpt the lifelike countenance, and why?
I was immediately reminded of crash test dummies, used to test the potential injuries in vehicle collisions. In this case, it makes sense that the crash dummies had to closely resemble the anatomy of a human in order to pinpoint where injuries might occur and how serious or life-threatening they would be. Many crash test dummies are faceless, but some of them have rudimentary facial features. For what purpose?
Obviously, something deeper than utility motivated the creators of these dummies to give them faces.
Vulnerability
Humans have always had an innate desire to create things in their own image. We see this expressed in everything from clay pots and figurines of ancient civilizations to paintings and sculptures and even children’s toys.
Maybe the urge to create human figures and faces is hard-wired in us for our own survival. Or maybe we create them to tell our stories, to pass something of us down to the next generation. Maybe reproducing the human form is a search for immortality or God-like powers.
Or maybe it all comes down to the opposite — human vulnerability.
In creating, we reveal our vulnerability because if we can create, we can destroy. If we can be created, we can be destroyed. This we all know on a primal level. As human beings, we have always been naturally vulnerable — to disease, injuries, and harm of all kinds. Women die during childhood. Infants are born imperfectly formed. Plagues arrive suddenly and wipe out entire families. A stroke robs us of our speech and movement. Eventually we all die.
The advancement of technology has made us even more vulnerable, Belgian philosopher Mark Coecklebergh argues in his 2013 book, Human Being @ Risk. Although we can mitigate existential risks through technology, we can never eliminate all of them, and what’s more, creation of new technologies poses new dangers to us: they make us even more vulnerable. Today, compared to our ancestors, we are confronted with thousands of more ways to be injured or die. And, technology has made us aware of our vulnerabilities to an extent we never were before, for example, through medical imaging such as x-rays, ultrasounds, and CT scans.
Parachute dummies and crash test dummies were made specifically for the purpose of making vulnerabilities visible. Both serve as substitutes for the human being placed in an at-risk situation.
And that’s where the face comes in.
Ethics and the Face
As we create technologies that do the work of human beings — that essentially substitute for human beings, acting as nonhuman agents in the world — we must consider how human-like they need to be. The Roomba, for example, does a fine job vacuuming my floor, and it bears no resemblance to a human at all. Factory robots, such as those that assemble vehicles, are essentially “arms” and nothing else.
Yet technologies we interact with on a more personal level, such as personal assistant robots, tend to have faces and often even facial expressions. Consider Sophia, the AI robot created by Hanson Robotics. As the website explains:
Sophia’s human-like face is capable of an astonishing array of complex and emotional expressions when she reacts and interacts with you. Her face, her eyes, the tilt of her head, all of it — it is all communicating with you as you are communicating with her.
In other words, the robot is created with a face specifically with the purpose of arousing emotions in the human being interacting with it. The robot becomes a quasi-human, or in the words of American philosopher Don Ihde, a quasi-other. The robot is acting with some degree of autonomy and in a way, presents in our perceptual world as a type of “other,” or other person. Sophia’s face only enhances that perception.
It is the face, French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas asserts, that reveals the being of that person as a separate and vulnerable individual that we are compelled to respond to. In his book, Totality and Infinitely, Levinas explains that the face-to-face encounter evokes in us a sense of responsibility and duty and shapes our ethical behavior. The face shows us the humanity of the other and calls on us to care. We can destroy a faceless object without remorse, but the face makes us stop and think.
The Face and the Dummy
We don’t know for certain why the creators of the parachute dummy made it with such a detailed face, or even if they understood their motivation for doing so. But the end result is a dummy that appears more human than necessary. The face serves no purpose except to remind the user of the ethics of the situation.
Both the parachute dummy and the crash test dummy are substitutes for humans, used ultimately to suffer injury and destruction in the place of real human beings. They are sacrifices, in a sense, created for the sole purpose of experiencing certain damage and inevitable harm so that people don’t have to. The dummies don’t need faces, but perhaps the face will remind the users of the dummies of the real human risk and the obligation of ethical conduct toward other people.
As Levinas writes in his book, Ethics and Infinity, “The first word of the face is the ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ It is an order. There is a commandment in the appearance of the face … it is the poor for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all.”
Note about the photo: The photo first appeared in a post on my Facebook feed. I attempted to find the original and found it posted two places. First is a website called The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things. I emailed the web owner but received no response. The second website is called 1st Dibs, where the dummy was offered for sale. Again, I received no response to my inquiry. Since the purpose is for academic analysis, I am assuming fair use. If you own the copyright for this photo, please contact me.
