Valleys and Zombies

The Uncanny Valley.

It's not the name of somewhere near Monterey, California, with Steinbeck wincing in the distance. No, it is a notion closely related to Dennett's intentional stance. The uncanny valley was proposed by Japanese robotics theorist Masahiro Mori in the early 70s. It is not a psychologically-motivated theory, per se, but rather a raw speculation that as the level of humanlike behavior improves in animatronics of various forms, there is a point at which we will become creeped-out by the similarity to real people.

For moving robotic simulacra, the weirdness is that they seem like zombies. Or, with a simulated arm, it looks too much like some Frankensteinian body part animated by lightning and stinking of embalming fluid. The reaction is revulsion.

Recent Robert Zemeckis films like Polar Express and Beowulf have caused similar reactions among some reviewers who felt that seeing Angelina Jolie or Tom Hanks as some lifelike muppet versions of themselves, moving around unnaturally, invoked a creep factor replete with skin-crawling sensations. The lesser-known simulated actors and actresses did not invoke the same reaction, however, because there was no uncanny resemblance at work in the viewer’s mind.

I suspect that our very productive human recognition circuits are at work here. I note a symmetrical oddity from my own childhood. Watching PBS and owning the Time-Life science book series, I saw many medical programs that showed open-chest or open-limb surgeries, and was intrigued by the anatomy of it all. But one evening Nova was about wide-awake brain surgery. For some reason, the exposure of the brain and, very critically, the notion that the brain is somehow connected to our sense of self, personality and thoughts, struck me as extremely disturbing. I certainly knew that the brain is responsible for thought and emotion. I even knew the basic physiology and had a small understanding of modularization. But observing the connection between volitional self and brain in real time just creeped me out to the extent that I remember that show to this day.

I see that experience of revulsion as projecting backwards over the uncanny valley, in a way, showing the mechanical aspects of the intentional aspects of human identity. We are not just creative, volitional tours-de-force riding an existential wave of thought, but are just across a gentle dip filled with zombies and robots, from nothing at all.