Uncanny Valley is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a certain level or stage of lifelikeness (as of a doll, computer-animated character, robot, etc.) that is past the point of being impressive or endearing and is instead disconcerting, creepy, or just off”.
Many people report seeing this phenomenon in humanoid robots, highly realistic CGI, or video game characters that look almost perfect, yet have just something “off” about them. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this in pop culture is the 2004 film The Polar Express.
Viewers reported a feeling of fear and discomfort from the early CGI characters with lifeless eyes and stiff, unnatural movements in both the face and body. Early motion-capturing techniques were unable to perfectly replicate human emotion, presenting characters that appeared as one of us yet were unable to behave accordingly.
Research into this theory showed that, as objects began to appear more human-like, the observer’s emotional response was positive until it hit a point where it suddenly shifted into revulsion and fear. The same can be said for the opposite. As objects became more robotic, responses became more positive. These results created a “valley” when placed on a graph, hence the name.
Several theories have emerged to try to explain the Uncanny Valley reaction. One proposes that it’s connected to mate selection.
Those with low fertility, poor health, or defects were deemed unsuitable for passing on traits in the early days of humans, and the theory suggests that the imperfections of the robots replicate the imperfections that would turn us away from a potential mate.
Another theory proposes that we see humanlike robots as a threat to our human identity. The more human something looks, the more it challenges our perception of human and non-human, forcing our brain to challenge the definition it knows. This theory believes that we are innately afraid of these humanoid beings since they pose a threat to our distinction from other species and signify the blurring of the line between what is human and what isn’t.
A different thought process says that the Uncanny Valley was an ancient survival technique turned into a modern-day fear. This proposes that the fear of humanoid beings with slight imperfections was used to warn us away from sick individuals and corpses, the likes of which could easily transfer disease. In the early days, medicine was much less effective, and any disease could be a death sentence.
Survival relied on staying healthy, both for our immune systems and for being fit enough to travel and catch food, so an innate fear/revulsion of corpses and sick individuals with slight imperfections would make sense. Were you to ask a conspiracy theorist what they thought, they’d certainly give you a different answer.
Connecting with the previously proposed theory, some people believe that, when different species of humans wandered the Earth, we developed the fear of things that resembled us, though were slightly off, to avoid possible enemies.
At the time of several different species, humans looked quite similar, though different species had different physical attributes that, when compared to others, made them appear off-putting and imperfect. It would make sense, evolutionarily, to be frightened of individuals that looked just like you but with small imperfections to avoid running into competitors who were possibly stronger and more brutal than yourself.
However, some people believe that the Uncanny Valley exists to warn us off from something else that wandered the Earth centuries ago, something far more sinister that took on our form. Some people may say shapeshifters or other mythological beings that exist in different cultures; others will tell you that we evolved to fear aliens with human-like features, possibly the same beings that built the pyramids.
The most intriguing part of this theory is that we can’t exactly prove it wrong. We didn’t wander the Earth thousands of years ago when this fear would’ve begun, so who knows what our ancestors saw? Perhaps they were given a glimpse of something we could never even imagine…
