Let's Visit the Uncanny Valley

Today's post is about the Uncanny Valley. Well, actually it's just an excuse to post a few videos of disturbing human-like robots and animation, but in case you haven't heard of the Uncanny Valley I'll explain it. The idea of the Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis which originally referred to robotics, referring to peoples' reaction to robots that look and act nearly human but not quite. As robots look and act more like humans, the reaction to them becomes more positive until a point at which it drops down into a 'valley' of revulsion/negative reaction. While this originally referred to robotics, it is now often used to refer to anything that is unsettlingly human-like.
A quote from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe fits this pretty well: "...when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet." (funny when you consider this advice was given to the children by a talking Beaver.)

The Uncanny Valley:

For your enjoyment (or terror), here are a few creepy videos.


This video, "The Cat With Hands" is creepy even without the foray into the Valley.



The previous example was intentionally creepy. This robot, in contrast, is not supposed to be.


Another robot, this one a little girl.





This may not be an example, but somehow the idea of a kid that size just scares me.