The Next Uncanny Valley

A colleague and friend of mine (Marco Ciappelli) recently published a post on LinkedIn where he eloquently described the concept and history of the term "The Uncanny Valley". In his words, "this phenomenon describes the eerie feeling we get when encountering robots or 3D animations that are almost, but not quite, human-like."

In pondering on this post, it occurred to me that we have entered a whole new uncanny valley.

The original notion of the "Uncanny Valley" was focused on the unsettling feeling resulting from the general likeness of machines to "humanness", but in the modern era, we are seeing another much more extreme form of this as machines take on the likeness of specific humans (rather than just general humanness). Those feelings of unease or revulsion are amplified further as it becomes more personal. Just yesterday, saw an article about how George Carlin's daughter's was horrified by an AI-Generated "comedy special" using the likeness of her late father.

Source: https://futurism.com/george-carlin-daughter-ai

This is a fascinating real-world example of how this phenomenon is increasingly being felt in very personal and visceral ways. As the likeness hits closer to home, the natural psychological aversion increases.

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