The Uncanny Valley

We humans have a tendency to see human characteristics in all sorts of things.

Anthropomorphism, as it’s called by people who prefer six syllable words, is everywhere. We name our hurricanes. Nation-states refer to other nation-states as she/her. Our planet is often called “Mother Earth.”

We even see faces where there aren’t any.

And, while we’re incredibly eager to make so many things that aren’t human seem human to us, there is apparently a limit to how far this can go.

People refer to this limit as “the uncanny valley”, after Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term in 1970. Mori noticed that as robots became more and more human-like, people's emotional response to them became more positive… but only to a point.

When the robots got too close to being human, but not quite there, people started to feel uncomfortable, disgusted, and repulsed.

What happened?

Finding faces that aren’t there might actually be a part of the same evolutionary phenomenon as the uncanny valley.

While …