The Uncanny Valley

[foolswisdom]

Hehe. That sounds like the title of a really bad movie... However, it's this really interesting concept that I just ran across tonight. First of all, go take a look at this, then come back

Comments

[joefredbob]

It seems to me that said response can be delt with or at least lessened. Think Data. He's definitely nearly human in a would-be-creepy sort of way, but because a big deal is made of that, it ends up being what people expect, so people can like him anyway.

[avenger337]

Except I think that Data is still far enough away.... Maybe -- he's got the pale white skin, which marks him immmediately as not being human. I think the Valley starts when there's nothing that's immediately obvious to mark the object as not being human.

As an interesting sidenote, Half Life 2 didn't make the people in it too human even though they had the capability, because it creeped people out.

Also, Pixar neglects to make their characters too lifelike, opting for a more cartoonish look because if the characters are too lifelike, they creep people out.

[mwhope]

perhaps the uncanny valley could be explained by the following postulate. As an entity approaches to a certain degree 'humanlike' characteristics but is known to be unhuman we as humans think it inferior to ourselves, but as it becomes more humanlike at a key point we become afraid of it. This fear may be evoked by a 'questioning sense' as we consider our place in the universe to be unique and special-nothing else is human, we have yet to find human equivilent intelligence anywhere-thus when an entity broaches that gap between obviously inferior to us humans and can be considered either an imitation or equal-or perhaps even a superior, then we become scared as it signifies that we are not special not unique, and it forces us to question many of our unspoken assumptions about our place in the universe.