Raphal Grayson Uncanny Valley

Sigmund Freud's ''Das Unheimlische" gives an insightful addition to Masahiro Mori's "The Uncanny Valley". Freud starts by stating that the word uncanny belongs to all that is terrible. That is, uncanny is everything that arouses dread and creeping horror. In this context, uncanny is everything that excites dread. The German word 'unheimlische' is the opposite meaning 'familiar', 'native', 'belonging to the home'. Thus, uncanny is frightening because it is not known or familiar. Naturally, everything that is new or unfamiliar is not frightening, but this relationship cannot be inverted. What is novel can easily become frightening. Something has to be added to the novel for it to become uncanny. Nonetheless, some new things are frightening but not by means all.




On the Uncanny Valley, Mori believed that steepness led to more human likeness. He believed the reverse led to uncanniness. On the left hemisphere of the Uncanny Valley is what scientists believe to be nonhuman and vice versa. That is to say, Mori hypothesized that as someone possessed a more robot like quality then they would shift from empathy to affinity as it approached a more lifelike quality. Nowadays, manufacturers are replacing humans with robots. Because these robots look nothing like humans, people hardly feel any aversion towards them. Scientists today are working also towards making these robots look more like robots; thus, scientists try to avoid the risk of increasing their human likeness to the first peak of the Uncanny Valley. A moderate degree of human likeness, and a considerable sense of affinity can be found along the lines of the first peak.