May 2022 - Writing and Language Test Q 34-44

Uncanny Valley: Fact or Fiction?

In 1970, 34 roboticist, Masahiro Mori proposed a hypothesis to account for an emerging challenge in his field-namely, that 35 you will experience a sense of unease if you encounter a robot that looks too much like a human. The problem, he argued, is that a robot’s likability has a nonlinear relationship with the degree to which it resembles a human. That is, robots 36 baring little or no resemblance to humans illicit little response, and as robots resemble humans more speculated that likability plummets for robots in the 75 to 90 percent human resemblance range 37 but that the drop occurs only if the robots are moving. Mori's name for this proposed zone of decreased likability—the uncanny valley—alludes to the eeriness and unfamiliarity evoked by 38 his uncanny valley hypothesis.

Though Mori’s hypothesis initially received little 39 attention that the concept has crept into popular culture, mainly to explain why computer-generated imagery (CGI) in movies sometimes alienates audiences. One reviewer of the 2017 film Justice League»for instance, invoked the hypothesis to criticize the 40 filmmakers' decision to hide an actor’s mustache under a clean shaven CGI mouth, writing that the actor had "an uncanny-valley thesis statement resting on his top lip."

40 Although The Polar Express is another film often used as an example of the uncanny valley, critics who casually employ the concept should remember that Mori’s original graph does not represent actual data collected in a scientific study. In fact, those who have conducted such studies have reached an important conclusion: the uncanny valley might not exist.

Psychologists from Emory University conducted an extensive review of existing research on the uncanny valley, finding "mixed and at times contradictory" evidence supporting its existence. 42 Without consistent terminology, it is likely that studies are measuring different—though related—phenomena. The Emory team concluded that, while the hypothesis is plausible, the empirical evidence is ultimately inconclusive about whether a robot’s likability and its human resemblance share the relationship proposed by Mori.

That film critics uncritically accept the uncanny valley as a proven fact is not surprising given the many misconceptions about human psychology that 43 soak popular culture. Still, as CGI and robots increasingly become fixtures of society, those who discuss such matters 44 can increase their knowledge by reading Sigmund Freud's essay "The Uncanny.”