The Uncanny Valley

I wrote recently about my reactions to an ai generated video clip purporting to be a performance by a real person on a well known talent show. You'll recall that I used the word creepy to describe the feeling I got. It turns out I am not alone. There is a term of art for this feeling, the Uncanny Valley. If you are unfamiliar with the phrase it comes from a concept first identified by a Japanese roboticist, Masahiro Mori, who described the feeling we experience when we encounter images of characters that look almost but not quite human. In brief, the closer images or objects approach human likeness the greater our affinity with them. We grow more comfortable and empathetic up to the point they achieve near perfect likeness at which point our affinity turns to revulsion. That is the Uncanny Valley.

Curious as to why this should be, I delved a little deeper. It seems this is a hard wired reaction social scientists suspect is a survival mechanism our stone age ancestors evolved to recognize threats; a finely tuned detection instinct baked into our reptilian brains. We may not always be able to say how we recognize a fake, whether it is subtle dissonance in movement or expression or possibly some deeper primal fear of anything which is alien. Animators and CGI artists are keenly aware of the phenomenon and use it to allay or heighten our emotional reactions to their characters. In the age of generative ai, however, things are about to get crazy. Perhaps that is why children and teens in particular have such negative reactions to ai. Their perceptions have not yet been numbed by the daily dose of unreality most of us have come to expect.

We humans are generally quite fine with benign deceptions, illusions, and facsimiles that fool our senses. We may find a Trompe L'oeil painting delightful, a Marzipan fruit delicious, and a robotic toy dog a perfectly acceptable substitute for fido. It takes skill to create a convincing fake--almost but not too real. Forgeries of any kind, however, are not so pleasant. The betrayal of our senses is at the least offensive and should it cost us something the violation can be unpardonable. We are wary--suspicious creatures and yet we are so easily fooled by anyone who shows, or tells us something we want to believe. And once we have bought into a lie it is very difficult to dissuade us. Shake your head at flat earthers, those who are certain man never set foot on the moon and conspiracy theorists of every stripe. No amount of truth, science or fact will shake their beliefs.

Why should this be? Psychologists would tell us it is an existential thing. The more deeply we become invested in a belief the more deeply it becomes woven into the fabric of who we are. Empirical evidence that what we believe isn't so, is a denial of self. If something we believe to be true is shown to be false, what than can we believe? And that is what social scientists and psychologists call cognitive dissonance. The scary part is that we are capable of it in the first place. But all of us at one time or another have held two contradictory thoughts in mind, carefully and almost always without self awareness compartmentalizing them lest we lose our minds.

The only way out is admitting we have been deceived, and I imagine you might agree that is exceedingly rare. Notice i say we have been deceived not that we have deceived ourselves. Someone other than us must be to blame, for if it is we who have been the perpetrators than who can we trust? Who is able to surrender their agency fully to someone or something other than themselves? It takes a strong mind to keep one's balance, to maintain an open mind and avoid investing in ideas and beliefs that we have not or cannot objectively demonstrate. It takes an even stronger sense of self to admit when we have erred, when new evidence or enlightenment has revealed a flaw in our perceptions. The Uncanny Valley is telling us a truth about our humanness. It is telling us that deep within our DNA there is an instinctive ability to recognize what is not real. It does not depend on our intellect or reason, but it does require that we listen to that still small voice within us.