Hello from the Scenic UNCANNY VALLEY!

When an inanimate object is just close enough to be creepy, it's said to be in the uncanny valley. Think any of the motion-capture based CG movies by Robert Zemeckis.

Quote:

Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970 once stated the more human a robot acted or looked, the more endearing it would be to a human being. For example, most lovable Robot Buddies look humanoid, but keep quirky and artistically mechanical affectations.

However, at some point, the likeness would seem too strong, and it would just come across as a very strange human being. At this point, the acceptance drops suddenly, changing to a powerful negative reaction.

When shown as a graph (see above), the acceptance on the Y axis and increasing X approaching human normal, there is a slow rise, then a sudden drop, then a sudden peak as "human normal" is reached. Masahiro Mori referred to this as the "uncanny valley".

I have never visited the Uncanny Valley, nor do I ever intend to, high-octane nightmare fuel as it is.