The uncanny valley is the place where an image that’s almost human creeps us out:
Sorry to share that.
Human beings evolved to have a distaste for things that are almost, but not quite, the usual thing. It takes a while for someone who wasn’t raised with cilantro to like it–the same with hot sauce. When Edison first showed people his moving pictures, people screamed. Our brain is warning us that categories are getting surprising and we should be on alert.
As AI spreads through the culture, we’re seeing plenty of mediocre AI-style writing. And then humans subconsciously start writing in that style because they see it so often. And finally, a grudging acceptance that it sounds okay. We’ve been through this a hundred times before.
No one asks to get creeped out. It’s usually done to us, not for us. But, over time, the creep fades.
Like most warnings, we ought to keep two things in mind:
- All warnings are not the same. We need to decide which ones to ignore.
- Just because a warning fades doesn’t mean that the problem is gone.
The creepiness fades.
But at the same time, there’s a creeping change as trusted and expected elements of our culture fade away.
