It used to be an obscure oddity, now we all need to understand it.
18 years ago, I posted this image:
…and I still can’t get it out of my head. Sorry.
Why do we have such a creeped-out reaction to images that aren’t quite right? A robot that looks too much like a person, or a song that we can somehow tell has an AI voice.
The creepiness predates AI, and was first named in a paper by Mori fifty years ago. But it’s so visceral that it almost certainly originated along with our fear of snakes and other evolutionary safeguards.
There are probably two things going on.
First, there’s a corpse alert. Corpses are dangerous, and something that’s alive/not alive is a warning sign. Same thing with zombies.
Second, imposter alert. Imposters are even more dangerous than predators, and we honed our imposter-detection skills a long time ago.
And now, everyone has AI available to them, and many of us are churning out experiences that border on the uncanny valley.
Not many people care about an automated drum track on a pop single, but we get uncomfortable when the lead singer isn’t quite human. We don’t mind when a website figures out our zip code for us, but when a bot apologizes for a late shipment, it means less than nothing. We’re okay with animation, but not with an educational video that combines beautifully shot real footage with an animated human that’s almost but not quite real…
While it’s possible to get used to snakes, and, perhaps, to corpses, I’m not sure that the general population is in any hurry to get used to either, or to the uncanny valley.
It’s likely that AI quality will increase fast enough that many of the most egregious valley moments will stop happening. But none of that will help with the expectation chasm. When you install an AI admin, or use AI for customer service or therapy, we will always end up with a valley sooner or later.
The solution is simple but takes effort: don’t fake it. Celebrate your genre, make a promise and keep it. Not in the way we need to label the ingredients in food, but simply to avoid the surprise realization, to protect your customers from the ick. Triggering an evolutionary survival mechanism is rarely good for your career.
“I confused and alienated people as I worked to save money trying to get them to think this was a person” is not much of a mission statement. Our job is to find problems and solve them, not to hustle our way with shortcuts that feel creepy.
Three videos for today:
Hank Green on the essential Mola sunfish metaphor.
Talking with Jon and Becky about We are For Good and the work of non-profits.
