WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: Exploring the Uncanny Valley 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.080 Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.520 Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.159 how the tech are you? And it's time for a 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.520 text Stuff Tadbits episode. I hope you're ready for another 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:32.519 spooky edition of tech Stuff for those of you listening 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:37.480 from the future. I've been doing a few tangentially spooky 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.160 episodes for the month of October and two thousand twenty two, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.520 and today I thought we would talk about the concept 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:49.360 of the Uncanny Valley, and we're gonna look at sort 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.760 of the hypothesis of the Uncanny Valley, as well as 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.960 some criticisms and counter arguments related to the idea. Not 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.040 that the uncanny isn't something that we experience, at least 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.040 that feeling of uneasiness we experience when we encounter something 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.840 that's said to be in the Uncanny Valley, but rather 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.920 the actual concept of the valley itself, whether or not 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.280 that's a valid idea. Before we can do any of that, 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.760 we need to talk about what the uncanny Valley is, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.800 or what it's supposed to be, at least in general terms. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.280 The phrase comes from roboticist Massa Hiro Mori. He has 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:33.039 made numerous contributions in the fields of robotics and in 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:39.160 human robot interactions and responses, including human emotional response to robots, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.200 which is really what happens when you get to the 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.720 heart of Uncanny Valley. So way back in nineteen seventy, 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.160 More penned an article for a Japanese journal called Energy, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.680 and it was in this article that we got the 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:59.800 phrase uncanny Valley. So Maury's observation was this, robots tend 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.760 to get more appealing as they start to look more 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.440 human like, but only up to a certain point. Once 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:13.520 you go past that point, they become incredibly unappealing. You know. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:15.920 It could be to the point where it's not just 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.040 that you have no emotional response, but you have a 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:23.440 negative emotional response upon encountering the robot. It becomes creepy 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:28.760 and disturbing. We have entire horror movies that are based 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:34.000 off this. A very current example is the film Meagan 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.680 m Three g a n You may have seen the 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.520 trailer or maybe an animated gift from it where you 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.440 see a child sized robot like it looks like a 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:50.839 robot little girl, but with artificial eyes doing this this 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.520 dance in a hallway, and a lot of people have 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.720 talked about how it's kind of nightmare inducing. That plays 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.880 on this concept of uncanny vale that when you reach 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.240 a level that looks pretty human but at the same 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.440 time as distinctly not human. There's something about it that 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.520 is very much not human, and that's when it really 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.040 turns you off. And then as you get closer to 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.040 human again, once you get past this point, the emotional 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.359 response improves. So in other words, you've got this continuum 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.800 from not human at all, which is usually matched with 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.920 little to no emotional response, to gradually becoming more and 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.600 more human like with an improved emotional response, to getting 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.839 almost but not quite humanlike, where you have a plunge 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.360 in the emotional response, and then you get past this 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.280 point and you get to the improvement again. So this 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.640 is that that dip there, that's the uncanny valley. It's 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:55.680 when robots appear to be strange and unsettling or uncanny 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:00.960 as it were. Uh. This concept, of course extends beyond robotics. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.840 We also use it for stuff like computer generated characters. 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.920 Remember way back in two thousand four with the film 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:13.120 The Polar Express came out. If you're not familiar with 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.760 the Polar Express, it's a computer animated film. Tom Hanks 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.159 did the voice for it and has a character that 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.360 looks like a creepy version of Tom Hanks in it, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.560 and the animators used live action references, including motion capture 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.599 performances to kind of serve as the underlying animation for 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:36.160 the characters in the film. Several reviewers praised the story, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.360 but a lot of them both positive and negative reviews, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.640 commented that the human characters in the film seemed off 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.800 and a little bit creepy as a result, that it 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.320 was kind of unsettling, especially to see their eyes move 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:57.960 now right away with this approach to an uncanny valley idea, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:02.120 there is a bit of a problem of this general definition, 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.440 and that's the fact that, you know, robots or computer 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:10.760 generated characters appearances aren't really designed to be on a 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:15.640 gradient like this, Like that was not necessarily the prime consideration. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.960 So if all artificial constructs, like if all computer animated 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:25.200 characters and all robots ultimately were meant to have an 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.680 appearance that was indistinguishable from a human or at least 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.640 to look human, with you know, that being the end 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.080 goal is to make it so that you couldn't tell 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.919 the difference between artificial and real. Then we would have 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.680 a pretty good basis for our thesis about the Uncanny Valley, right, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.920 because you would have this purposeful gradient there. But instead, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.880 you know, there are robots that are never meant to 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.760 look human in appearance. That was never a consideration because 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.200 it wasn't necessary for what the job that the robot 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.880 was going to do. So it's a non factor. Right. 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.080 The robots were designed to do something like to solve 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.719 some sort of problem or to do some sort of task, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.760 and unless that happens to include to the the requirement 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.279 to look like a human at the same time, there's 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.080 no reason to make that part of the design process. Heck, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.080 we've seen this with various robot designs recently, where a 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.919 lot of companies were looking at using robots with wheels 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.479 instead of robots with legs, because legs are way more 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.640 complicated to work out than wheels. You know, being able 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.760 to make sure that the robot can balance and can 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.080 move around without falling over these are non trivial challenges. 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.720 So if there's no reason for the robot to have 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.720 those those features, you tell build it into the robot. Right, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.080 If the robot doesn't need to move around at all, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.839 then it doesn't have legs or wheels or anything. It's stationary. 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.159 So you know, a robot that's meant to quickly weld 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.880 a dozen spots on a car chassis can look like 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.719 a big old industrial arm that has a few points 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.560 of articulation, or you do. You might have a robot 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:13.920 that's just like this big stationary block that to you 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.200 doesn't look like robot at all. Right, it doesn't have 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.280 any features on it that screamed to you robot, but 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.720 it is in fact an automated, repetitive machine designed to 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.000 to do some task on its own. More or less. 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.280 You might call it a robot by those definitions, but 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.240 it doesn't look like what we think of when we 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.440 hear the word robot. They may just be another element 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.840 along an assembly line that helps produce some manufactured component, 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.000 so they don't look human. But they also don't creep 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.800 us out right. We don't look at these giant industrial 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:56.880 robots and feel them like having an unsettling uh influence 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.880 on us. We have a non emotional response to most 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.120 of them. So it's just a it's just a thing. 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.120 It's just like a tool. It's like if you saw 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.840 a hammer or a screwdriver, you're not likely to have 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:15.480 some sort of emotional response to that. So maybe instead 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.640 of just grouping all robots together and saying they fall 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.080 along this uncanny valley, we should really focus on a 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:28.360 subset of robots, ones that incorporate elements of human like appearance. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.840 So that would count out stuff like room buzz. You 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.320 wouldn't put your roomba in that category, right, Your industrial 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.680 robots also wouldn't go in there. Um And I'm not saying, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.400 by the way, that your robotic vacuum cleaner isn't cute. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:43.520 I'm just saying that for the purposes of an uncanny 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:49.400 valley narrative or conversation, it doesn't really fit. But let's 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.920 get back to Masahiro Mori. He created a pretty simple graph, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.520 a line chart with an X axis and a y axis. 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.800 So the X axis the horizontal axis he wrote human likeness, 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.120 So the further to the right you got along this axis, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.320 the more like a human the robot would appear. The 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:14.160 y axis, the vertical axis is the affinity or the 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.200 emotional response, like from no response to positive and if 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.559 you dip below the line, like below the x axis, 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.920 you go to negative response. Right, So this is how 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.200 he would plot robots. He would argue that industrial robots 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.760 score low both in human likeness and in affinity, that 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.160 they don't look like humans and we don't tend to 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.839 have an emotional response to them. So if you were 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.120 to plot points on this graph, it would be pretty 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.959 close to the x axis, pretty close to the y axis, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.360 so it would be the low part of the line. 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.760 But then you get into things like toy robots, right, 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.760 and these toys may look slightly more like a human 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.040 than industrial robots do. They might be anthropomorphic, they might 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.840 be bipedal um. But you would never mistake a simple 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.800 toy robot for a human. You would just recognize the 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.480 human like features, and our affinity goes up, our emotional 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:17.400 response starts to be more positive compared to say, industrial robots, 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:23.280 presumably because they look more like people or humans. So 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.200 we have a slight upward slope of our line that 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.360 we begin to plot. All right, before we get too 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.440 far into this slope in this line, let's take a 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.800 quick break. We'll come right back and talk a little 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:47.319 more about Unkenny Valley. Okay, where we left off, we 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:52.240 were saying that toy robots are slightly more humanlike in 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.160 appearance than say, industrial robots, and that we have a 0:10:55.240 --> 0:11:01.520 more positive emotional response to them. So, according to Maury's graph, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.960 once we get past the fifty point where uh we 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.040 start to really approach human likeness, we still see improvement 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.480 in affinity. Right as robots get to look more and 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.520 more human like, we start to be more and more 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.320 positive in our acceptance of them. So think about like 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:26.960 robots that have very expressive eyes. For example, they don't 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.200 necessarily look like a human, but think of like a 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.840 robot that has a vaguely kind of human shape, with 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:35.959 like a torso and a head and stuff, and they 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.440 have eyes that are large and appear to be expressive. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.120 Those are the kind of things that we tend to 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.120 respond positively too. But then as we start to make 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.360 the robots look more and more human like, maybe we 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.080 put an artificial skin on them, We might put a 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.640 wig on them to give them hair. We might make 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.520 their eyes appear to be more human, and those eyes 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.200 may or may not house camera, who knows. We may 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:06.080 give them the ability to make certain expressions. Then we 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.480 start to reach a point where we can get to 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.880 that negative reaction, the affinity would dip below zero. So 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.840 on our little chart, the slope now goes all the 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.320 way down below the X axis and then bottoms out 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.040 somewhere around there where we get to some horrifying monstrosity 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.760 that just makes us wet ourselves when we look at it. Now, 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.520 once you get past that point where the robot or 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:36.040 artificial human is beyond that creepy factor, the line starts 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.880 to go back up again, and eventually it overtakes where 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.199 we left off before the depth, so that we eventually 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:48.040 start seeking out experiences with those robots, or we seek out, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.800 you know, films that use that kind of computer animation 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.600 because we find it really appealing. So it's no longer 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.400 that there's this gap, there's this like perception that the 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.760 thing is unnatural and it bothers us um. One example 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:11.079 I saw using Morey's graph, his line chart was on 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.920 the far side where things are going up again, where 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.880 we're starting to see improvement is the bun rock Who 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.280 puppet so Bunarrock Who is a form of puppet theater 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.080 that dates back hundreds of years in Japan and in 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.199 traditional bun rock who you have three puppeteers who control 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.360 each figure. You have a primary puppeteer who is in 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.040 charge of the character's head movements as well as their 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.160 right hand. You have a secondary puppeteer who controls the 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.760 left hand, and you have the third puppeteer responsible for 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.679 the legs and feet. By the way, typically in the 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.840 history of bun Rock who if you were to train 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.400 in that kind of puppetry, you would start as someone 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.680 who would manipulate feet and legs, work your way up 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.440 to being the left hand, and then ultimately, if you 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.560 were really skilled, you could graduate up to the point 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.240 where you could control of puppets head and right hand. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.920 This art form obviously requires very careful coordination between the 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:15.560 three puppeteers, and really accomplished performers can create incredible lifelike 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.880 movements like it is captivating to watch bun Rock Ou theater. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.520 But I think the inclusion of bun Rock WU on 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:30.480 the positive side, like Past the Uncanny Valley, demonstrates that 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.080 there's something of an element of cultural and social factors 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.280 that can affect our emotional reaction when we see something 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.560 that we would describe as falling into the uncanny valley. 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.360 Because I think, at least for some Western audiences, watching 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.760 a bun rock Who performance might be a little unsettling. Certainly, 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.000 the puppets can sometimes inspire that creepy feeling of themselves. 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:59.400 So because it is not part of my culture, this 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.200 this kind of bit theater. Even though I've seen these performances, 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:06.480 it's not something that is coming from my culture or 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.000 something I was exposed to a lot as a child. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.560 I find bun Rocky puppets to be a little unsettling. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.880 In fact, I'll never forget when I visited my sister, 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.680 a puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts, which is 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.400 here in Atlanta. They have an amazing museum, and I 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.920 visited my sister, and it was after hours, but they 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.760 let me in and said, go ahead and you can 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.840 walk through the museum if you like. This is with 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.920 all the main lights turned off, like they had lighting, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.400 but it was not the same lighting they would have 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.560 during the day. So I'm in this dim area filled 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.720 with puppets all staring at me, and it was very creepy. 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.640 There were also puppets of varying degrees of human like, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.640 some of them, like bun rock Who, puppets, some of 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:57.000 them more abstract. It was a really creepy experience. Now, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.520 my point here is that the Uncanny Valley might best 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.560 describe a feeling you get upon encountering something that seems 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:08.720 both humanlike and alien at the same time. It doesn't 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.800 necessarily describe a continuum that goes from not human at 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:19.160 all two indistinguishable from human. That that is possibly the 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.360 wrong way to look at this, right, that it's not 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.120 necessarily things are getting better, Things are getting better, Things 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.640 are getting better, woe, things are really terrible. Things are 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.160 getting better again, because again, it all depends on what 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.040 the robots built for, what the computer generated character is 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.640 made for, and how it performs. I think it's fair 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.040 to say that I experienced a similar unsettling feeling when 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.360 I watched early videos of Boston Dynamics robots, you know, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.600 those four legged robots. They looked kind of like they 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.200 were moving like an animal and kind of like they weren't, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:53.320 And that was really kind of an unsettling experience. And 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.800 they look nothing like humans. Right, So I am, by 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.320 no means an expert when it comes to subjects like 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:03.240 robotics or psychology. So I fully admit that my hypothesis 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.760 is coming without the benefit of expertise, right I. I 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.200 can only say from what I've researched, And it may 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:13.400 well be that we can describe artificial beings appearances as 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.159 falling on this continuum that includes the Uncanny Valley. But 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.960 I think there are other factors and variables at play here, 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.240 mostly regarding the gap between an artificial beings behavior and 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.480 appearance and the behavior and appearance of the real analog. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.160 And it might well be that younger generations will experience 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.000 less of a sense of the Uncanny Valley because they 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.560 will spend more of their lives around artificial beings, either 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.080 in their entertainment or in the real world around them. 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.400 So it may be that the Uncanny Valley will gradually 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:51.640 kind of fade away, not because this continuum was solved, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.400 that we suddenly jumped past this perceived gap, but that 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:00.040 the experience is no longer as foreign or alien of 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.840 the people who are experiencing it as it is to 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.240 older generations like like mine. So yeah, that's kind of 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.959 a take on Uncanny Valley. I really do think that 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.280 if you do have that those subtle gaps, like especially 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.040 around eye movement, things like that you can look and 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.280 say this looks photo realistic. This looks like a really 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.159 well done video, Like it looks like an actual person, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.520 except there's something off about the eyes, either the reflectiveness 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.800 of them, the wetness of the eyes, the movement of 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.000 the eyes. That's really where I see a lot of 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.160 that following through. There's also a lot to be said 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:45.040 about subtle facial expressions that aren't always captured in computer 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.720 generated versions of characters, where it just seems a little 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.159 too flat. But anyway, I thought that it would be 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.560 fun to kind of talk about Uncanny Valley and where 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.679 that idea came from. I'm curious to hear your thoughts 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:01.919 on it if you would like to let me know, 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.199 or maybe you've got a suggestion for a future episode. 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:05.720 There's a couple of ways you can get in touch. 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.320 One is to download the I Heart Radio app. It's 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.880 free to download and use. You can navigate to tech 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.480 stuff in the little search bar. There's a little microphone icon. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.760 You can leave a message up to thirty seconds in length. 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.600 Let me know if you would like me to play 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.160 it in a future episode and let me know that way, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.560 Or you can get in touch on Twitter the handle 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.240 for the show is tech Stuff H s W and 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:35.600 I'll talk to you again really soon. Y. Tech Stuff 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.840 is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.640 i Heeart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.760 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.