Famous 'Uncanny Valley' Essay Translated, Published In Full

An anonymous reader writes "IEEE has published an English translation of the 1970 essay in which Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori introduced the now-famous concept of the Uncanny Valley. The original essay was in Japanese, and IEEE says this is the first publication of a translation authorized and reviewed by Mori. They also have an interview with Mori, who still thinks that robot designers should not attempt to 'cross' the Uncanny Valley."

Very interesting

[azalin]

The whole concept is very interesting and should be mandatory reading for vr/cgi/games designers. The implications while focused on robotics also hold true for computer generated humans (and creatures) in movies and video games.

Goes the other way too

[vlm]

The uncanny valley goes the other direction too.
Too much work done on a human female by a plastic surgeon, hair stylist, body piercer, tattoo artist, or makeup artist makes her look really weird, you could even say "uncanny".

I would postulate that a overlap situation either already exists or soon will, where a silicone female can be found who is weirder looking in the artificial direction than a silicon female in the human direction. This has interesting implications for hollywood and pr0n actors where at least some fraction of human beings are better replaced with CGI equivalents.

I was creeped out by Final Fantasy movie

[peter303]

Its was both too fake and real. Polar express was like that too.

Dreamwork artists said that had to make Shrek characters more cartoonist because they were getting too close to the Valley.

Don't know what 'uncanny valley' feels like? See..

[stiebing.ja]

... the video of the robot Octavia in action [youtube.com] to get a feeling of it. Developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) [navy.mil] it looks so much like a mixture of Alien (out of the famous movie) and the cute Nao [aldebaran-robotics.com] that it is the most scary thing I ever saw moving.

This thing is so far in the Uncanny Valley - you could also just call him "Uncle Vanney".
It's look is strange enough that my brain just can't decide wether it's cute or evil, so decides to panic and makes we want to flee immediatly - and might it be into the open flames...

(Just to be on the safe side: I for one welcome our new firefighting Octavia lords)