Into the Uncanny Valley: The Roots of Our Fear and the Future of Almost-Human Entities

The Broadcasting Seeds Podcast

The concept of the Uncanny Valley, where human-like robots or avatars elicit a sense of unease or revulsion, can be traced back to deep-seated aspects of our history and past. This fear may stem from ancient survival instincts, where detecting subtle differences in appearance and behavior could mean distinguishing friend from foe or healthy from diseased. Additionally, the supernatural entities in folklore and mythology, from doppelgängers to shape-shifting spirits, have long evoked fear by appearing almost human but with an unsettling twist. These narratives, passed down through generations, reinforce a primal wariness of entities that blur the line between the familiar and the unknown, suggesting that our discomfort with the Uncanny Valley is a modern manifestation of age-old anxieties.