Uncanny Valley

Most people have seen pictures of humanoid androids. The pictures where you can really tell that the creators behind the robot have really worked hard to make it look realistic. Yet, most of the time, these robots end up being more eerie than impressive. 

This specific feeling most get when looking at a humanoid robot is named "Uncanny Valley". The term was first coined by Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori, who in 1978 wrote an essay about the unnerving feeling derived from human-like robots. The essay was later translated to english, which directly translated the sentence bukimi no tani to "uncanny valley". 

Mori created the legendary graph that visualizes the feelings some tend to get when seeing human-like robots. 

As you can see, people tend to like androids that mimic anthroponomy up until a very certain point where it abruptly curves downward, causing the person to feel very uneasy. This sudden curve downward is what we call the "uncanny valley". 

But why do we feel such distain towards these almost-human robots? There are many theories as to why we feel this way, and I have collected 12 different theories that people have come up with over the years. 

First, I have some disclaimers I'd like to point out!

Not everyone feels this uneasiness around life-like robots. Therefore, uncanny valley is purely a concept, and not a fact.

Second of all, there is no official reason as to why we feel this way. All these theories are just that. Purely hypotheses. But on that same note, almost no theories have been flat-out denied, which makes all of these even more interesting to think about.

1. To detect something dead:

Our ancestors needed to be able to spot when a human was dead or not, so they wouldn't be to close to rotting flesh and possibly get infected. Corpses tend to look different than living humans, and this can explain the unease we feel.

2. An evolutional fear of getting replaced by robots:

A lot of plots to sci-fi movies center around the idea of robots possibly being a harm to humans, specifically in the idea of robots being the cause of some mass-extinction event that will kill everyone. The AI that make robots "sentient" has a way of finding every possible solution to the problem it has been told to solve, and if that problem is humans, who knows what can happen?

3. Anthropomorphic mimicking:

A theory of the origin of uncanny valley is that a kind of specie was mimicking our ancestors as a tactic to hunt humans.

4. Humanoid specie:

Another theory is that humanity once coexisted with another specie that resembled humans in a very uncanny way. These species weren't necessarily hurting humans, but something about them made our ancestors uncomfortable.

5. Neanderthals:

Some people believe that uncanny valley stems from our fear of AMH's (anatomically modern humans). Neanderthals and AMH's had been coexisting for 5.000+ years before Neanderthals eventually died to inbreeding. Maybe the two species of humans were scared of each other because of lack of knowledge about the other specie. 

6. To avoid interbreeding:

A theory is that the uncanny feeling stems, once again, from our time as Neanderthals. AMH's would get uncomfortable around Neanderthals because they were aware of their inbreeding, so AMH's knew that it would cause genetic errors to breed across different hominin groups. This could open up a new theory that the uncanny valley isn't exclusive to humans, and is a cause of speciation.

7. Fear of change:

We expect a human to look a certain way, so even the 

8. Mortality salience hypothesis:

The face of clowns, dolls, corpses and zombies could remind us of death, which makes us feel uncanny.

9. Violation of expectation hypothesis:

Faces that are humanoid might lead us to expect that they will behave human-like and then we feel creeped out when they fil to do so. Studies show that robots that look like humans but don't act human creep us out more than robots who look like us and don't do anything. A mismatch in voice - looks or movements and looks freak us out a lot too.

10. Categorical uncertainty hypothesis:

Anything our brains can't put in a box (categorize) makes us uncomfortable. Basically, it's the confusion and uncertainty of uncanny faces that makes them eerie.

11. Mind perception hypothesis:

Some people feel as though uncanny robots become creepy because their human-like appearance makes us think they are sentient in some ways. 

12. Dehumanization hypothesis:

This theory is basically that uncanny faces are creepy because they look like us but don't act like us [humans].