Uncanny Valley

AI Grifters Fill Amazon With Kara Swisher Memoir Ripoffs

The biggest name in tech journalism gets hit with the AI grifter treatment on Amazon.

This Robotic Finger Is Covered in Living Human Skin

The skin can realistically bend, stretch, and wrinkle as the finger curls and extends.

ESPN’s Disturbing New Broadcast Tech Turns the NBA Into a Real-Life Video Game

Volumetric video footage enables limitless camera angles...and a healthy dose of the uncanny valley.

Your Heart Won’t Want to Go on Watching This Creepy Robot Impersonate Celine Dion

Thanks to companies like Boston Dynamics, we now have robots that can climb stairs, run parkour, and even perform backflips. But dragging robots out of the uncanny valley and making automatons indistinguishable from humans is going to be an infinitely more challenging feat if Cleo, a robot engineered with human-like expressive movements, is any indication.…

Soon, We’re All Going to Know What a Live-Action Jiminy Cricket Looks Like

I, for one, am not ready. Yesterday, Deadline reported that Robert Zemeckis is officially and 100% on board to direct and co-write Disney’s live-action remake of Pinocchio, a story about a puppet who becomes a real boy, a vision so uncanny that of course Disney wants to make it with real actors. The film will…

If You Didn’t Like the Sonic the Hedgehog Trailer, Try This Terrifyingly Surreal One Instead

Sonic the Hedgehog doesn’t look promising. But it definitely has room to look… stranger. Because, as uncanny as the filmic Sonic may be (though not for long, possibly), he ain’t got nothing on the sheer power of internet content creators. Here’s the thing: the internet, channeling the capability of computers to create things that don’t…

The Battle Angel Director Tries and Fails to Justify Alita’s Giant, Creepy-Ass Eyes

At some point in the production of every live-action adaptation of an illustrated franchise, creative teams have to go about the important business of choosing just how closely to hew to the aesthetic style of the source material. Staring into the lead character’s disturbingly large eyes, it’s safe to say Alita: Battle Angel’s director Robert…

Video Game Characters Are Getting Too Freakishly Real for Me

It’s easier to mindlessly blast away a room full of video game baddies when they look at you with dead eyes and zombie-like facial expressions. It’s a completely different challenge when they appear to be expressing actual emotions and pain, made all the more believable with this new advanced facial animation tool for the Unreal…

7 Animated Children Who Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Instead Nightmarish Monsters

Hollywood has a history of animating kids in ways that are supposed to be adorable, but end up giving us night terrors. The Boss Baby, out March 31, will be the latest offender; it’s about an infant voiced by Alec Baldwin who’s somehow secretly a corporate executive. Insane plot aside, that beligerent, giant -headed baby…

This Intense Short Film About Virtual Reality Is Already in the Works as a Feature

“Virtual reality, to me, is the only reality.” So begins Uncanny Valley, a short from Argentina’s Federico Heller that’s on the fast track to becoming a feature, thanks to the efforts of Independence Day: Resurgence writer Carter Blanchard. Watch the film below and see why it’s generated so much excitement. Here’s the official synopsis: In…

This Feature Film Is Billing an Android as One of Its Stars

Most robots don’t have IMDb pages. Geminoid F isn’t most robots. The creepily real-looking, dark-haired, female android is receiving star billing in Sayonara, a feature-length film that premieres in Japan next month. It’s certainly not the first time a robot has appeared in a movie with a human. But not only does this ‘bot really…

Will Humans Love Robots More When They’re Flawed? Absolutely Not.

A team of British researchers have a salacious hypothesis: People like robots more when they exhibit the same sorts of flaws that characterize humans. This makes some sense—after all, the notion of a perfect, all-knowing robot is the stuff of dystopian science fiction. But do you know what’s worse than a perfect, all-knowing robot? A…

Matt McMullen’s RealDoll proved some people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a fully customized sex doll. His new project, Realbotix, will try to integrate robotics and artificial intelligence to enhance the experience (and make it far more expensive). Check out the video at the New York Times’ Bits site. Contact the author…

This Life-Sized Marty McFly is Creeping Me Out

I can’t look away. This “realistic” life-sized Marty McFly I found on eBay is just too… creepy. The uncanny valley is definitely in full effect here. The seller of this Back to the Future monstrosity claims that this was “privately commissioned,” making me wonder who exactly wanted this McFly (complete with a little Einstein dog!)…

It’s Hard to Believe This Isn’t a Real Person

The subject of this video is not real. It is a hyper-realistic, digital human head created by Australian designer Chris Jones, who calls his creation Mr. Head – or “Ed,” for short. Here’s the full sequence, featuring a special appearance by Mr. Hand (also animated): Jones has been working on rendering a complete human body…

What Do Sex Dolls And Cell Phones Have In Common?

Julie Beck’s latest feature for The Atlantic is chock-full of all the salacious factoids one expects from an article titled “A (Straight, Male) History of Sex Dolls.” Above: “Sandy sex doll or poseable mannequin” | Photo Credit: Dollist | CC BY-SA 3.0 For instance: There is an urban legend that Hitler had sex dolls designed…

The Uncanny Valley of Old Futurism

In 1995 Eugene Volokh wrote the most paleofuturish article ever written. By that I mean it’s an incredibly prescient meditation on the future of media and technology. But it has just enough weird anachronisms to remind us that nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty. Think of it as the uncanny valley of old…

Is the “uncanny valley” a myth?

The “uncanny valley” is that creepy Final Fantasy feeling when a robot or CGI character is too dead-eyed to be believable, but too realistic to be cute. Roboticists and animators have long tried to avoid creations that induce this psychological state. But maybe they’ve been worried about nothing. Roboticist Masahiro Mori invented the idea of…

Nobody Wins When Slime Mold Invades the Uncanny Valley

Theoretically, a perfect robot face would look normal. But until we reach utter perfection, everything that falls even slightly short is horrifying. Take, for instance, this robot visage powered by ravenously hungry slime mold. It’s surprisingly functional, and unsurprisingly nightmarish. Slime mold is strange. It has neither a brain, nor a nervous system, yet it…

Would you copy your mind to a robotic body-double?

A central theme of the recently concluded GF2045 Congress was the idea of achieving a kind of immortality by transferring our minds to avatars or robots. Indeed, as Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro’s presentation clearly showed, our robotic doppelgangers will truly be made to look and act like the real thing. During his presentation at Alice…