A very interesting Slate piece; I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it sounds plausible. Key point:
When an android, such as R2-D2 or C-3PO, barely looks human, we cut it a lot of slack. It seems cute. We don’t care that it’s only 50 percent humanlike. But when a robot becomes 99 percent lifelike — so close that it’s almost real — we focus on the missing 1 percent. We notice the slightly slack skin, the absence of a truly human glitter in the eyes. The once-cute robot now looks like an animated corpse. Our warm feelings, which had been rising the more vivid the robot became, abruptly plunge downward. [Japanese roboticist Masahiro] Mori called this plunge “the Uncanny Valley,” the paradoxical point at which a simulation of life becomes so good it’s bad.
Of course, the really important (I mean billion-dollar important) effect of this is likely to be on the future digital porn / virtual reality sex market . . . .
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