The Social Uncanny Valley

Got to see an excellent talk this weekend called Facing Up to the Uncanny Valley. If you’re not familiar with the term, it is a feeling of creepyness you get when a computer created person gets between 96% and 99% indistinguishably real.

While we can project empathy and emotion on a simpler figure (think stick figure), and marvel at something like the creatures in Shrek, if they get just a little more real, it’s terribly disturbing. It seems the best way right now to mitigate this feeling is with context and writing.

In a movie like avatar, the filmmaker has the ability to create a completely artificial environment, suspending our disbelief of reality and then playing in that realm with figures we forgive. The writing helps us develop emotional connections to the characters, and then we overlook flaws that might otherwise make us uncomfortable.

What’s interesting is how much we deal with the concept of the uncanny valley in social communications right now. We’re at a point in society where brands can understand more about people’s habits than they know about themselves. A recent example of this is where we see social data that tells us the majority of people in an audience love Kid Rock. If we write a status update about Kid Rock it feels coincidental. If we post on one person’s wall that we see they like Kid Rock, it’s super creepy.

Luckily, simple, sound storytelling and personification without personalization are the order of the day. In CGI, we can tell that it’s not a person because the eyes reflect too much light, or an eyebrow furrows without the lower eyelid moving up just a millimeter.

The difference between a glass of milk and a glass of paint is a subtle translucence. The difference between facilitating conversation, making people feel welcome in a community and feeling like you’re being watched is a subtle but crucial four percent.

What do you think? Please continue the conversation in the comments below or on Twitter @mleis.