The Uncanny Valley

More procrastination. But every so often, you run into an article that you've got to show everyone...


THE UNDEAD ZONE
by Clive Thompson

In 1978, the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori noticed something interesting: The more humanlike his robots became, the more people were attracted to them, but only up to a point. If an android become too realistic and lifelike, suddenly people were repelled and disgusted.

The problem, Mori realized, is in the nature of how we identify with robots. When an android, such as R2-D2 or C-3PO, barely looks human, we cut it a lot of slack. It seems cute. We don't care that it's only 50 percent humanlike. But when a robot becomes 99 percent lifelike—so close that it's almost real—we focus on the missing 1 percent. We notice the slightly slack skin, the absence of a truly human glitter in the eyes. The once-cute robot now looks like an animated corpse. Our warm feelings, which had been rising the more vivid the robot became, abruptly plunge downward. Mori called this plunge "the Uncanny Valley," the paradoxical point at which a simulation of life becomes so good it's bad...

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It's a fascinating article from Slate, I highly recommend reading it through. (The secondary article that's linked to, delving deeper into the idea of "the uncanny valley", is fascinating too -- if a bit more academic.) It's been something that I've been trying to articulate for a good while now -- I've noticed it watching the cgi in certain "realistic" videogames. But I've felt a similar, hard-to-articulate repellency while watching the trailers for the upcoming Zemeckis/Hanks CGI-festivas, The Polar Express...

It *looks* like Tom Hanks... but somehow... it *ain't* Tom Hanks. It's the dead-eyed corpse of Tom Hanks, dancing and strutting like a necro-puppet. With dead-eyed corpse children frolicking about, leading up to a visit from the bellowing, dead-eyed corpse of Santa Claus.

Kidnap the Santy Claws!
Nail him to the wall!
Prick him full of bullet-holes!
See if he will bawl!!

Kidnap the Santy Claws!
Tie him up in string!
Hang him from a gallows noose!
See if he will swing!!