Unscientific but interesting nonetheless.

It always seemed to me that the valley was uncanny because the creatures that reside there look human enough to fool us into thinking they are human. The trouble is when they start to interact, and they don't act human -- Either we are facing something unknown, which is inherently frightening, or the thing looks like they are trying to be fully functional and failing, instead appearing disabled (which people are also naturally averse to). I never picked up on the purported connection with death.

I think David is right. We have distinct mechanisms for evaluating creatures -- the criteria we use for humans, and the criteria we use for everything else.

We hold humans to a much higher standard. We're supposed to cooperate with and love humans. Humans that are ill (mentally or physically) are scary. A non-human that is ill is maybe sad but not particularly threatening, and we don't have such a strict model of non-human behavior that we could tell, anyway.

So once a robot starts getting realistic enough that it turns on our human specific criteria, look out. Every nuance of behavior better be spot on or else you've created something that is perceived as a mentally ill, socially inept stroke victim with a skin disease. I don't think it has anything to do with death. It has everything to do with "this thing is deranged and sick and I don't want to interact with it any more than the crazy person on the subway".

seeing an 'uncanny' robot reminds me of looking at dubya on tv.

'ok, he looks human, although his body movements are a bit awkward and yeah, the eyes are kind of dead but i suppose that could be the light. hey karina, c'mere a minute. take a look at this. ya think he's human? there's obviously a lot of power behind this thing for it to be at a press conference but i dunno, there's a massive delay before the words come out'.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Fantastic - the quote at the end is probably right.

I don't think the quote about death and mortality is the reason. I think it's because they generally look human, but there's something "off" about them that is extremely unnatural for a human, which can be frightening. If you're talking to someone and all of a sudden their mouth or eyes contort in a way that is extremely unnatural, or beyond the bounds of what humans should be capable of, that would scare anyone.

NM... found it! Very cool robots in there...

>> ^deputydog:
seeing an 'uncanny' robot reminds me of looking at dubya on tv.
'ok, he looks human, although his body movements are a bit awkward and yeah, the eyes are kind of dead but i suppose that could be the light. hey karina, c'mere a minute. take a look at this. ya think he's human? there's obviously a lot of power behind this thing for it to be at a press conference but i dunno, there's a massive delay before the words come out'.


They fixed that in later revisions:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Pentagons-Unmanned-Spokesdrone-Does-First-Press-Conference

There's some physical subtly humans have behind every thought and emotion that just hasn't been replicated yet. Maybe because we're human we can't notice it...just like how we can't hear our own accent.

They creep us out because you keep playing that fucking Unsolved Mysteries soundtrack every time you show one, asshole.

meh. its just they look like an injured or sick person.

In the wild, someone with stilted movements, or the back of their head missing would get alarm bells ringing

The video should be updated to include Benjamin Button, that almost came out of the right side of the valley.

I think this also speaks to the raw technological power (processing power, graphics cards, robotics tech, etc.) required to push us over the hump. It takes an exponentially-greater amount of effort and technology, but I think we're climbing out.

I wish they had touched on that last example some more with the CG spokeswoman. Obviously, the company did that intentionally to reveal it was a render, and I was blown away when I first saw it. Of course, I'm not trying to place a value judgment on the direction we're heading in... Just a commentary on the state of the technology.

Ok, so the characters in Half-Life 2 - Kleiner, Alyx, Eli, Barney...how do they fit in? Are they caricatured enough to fall before the valley?
To me, their failure to be genuinely human is not particularly unsettling.

Video game characters are much less likely to wrap their hands around your neck.

I think a game life HL2 has great characters period. Good voice acting, good textures, good modeling and a good voice movements. This all works together as sitting in the middle of the graph I think. Nothing is perfect and tooooo real that it's bizzare. Or nothing is really off that screams "FREAK !!!!!!" Also I think because its a game, we know automatically its not real. I've never been creeped out by a video game character in the way a mannequin standing there lifeless can make me think awful thoughts.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Unscientific but interesting nonetheless.


Of course it's unscientific, it's a purely emotional, animalistic response.