An example of the uncanny valley

A great example of the “uncanny valley” phenomenon:

You mean that you have a strange feeling of repulsion when looking at this robot? 
Some of the comments sure show this phenomenon.

Yeah, I just did a course in the fall that covered a lot of human-machine interaction theory.  I even wrote a paper on the uncanny valley. 

You can apply it to a lot of stuff, like video games and movies and cartoons, etc.  It explains why Nintendo games are so much more successful when they are more cartoon-like, rather than the “almost human, but not quite” type of game, for example. 

Or why the really popular animated movies in the last few years have all been Pixar’s take on non-human characters.  Even though they have the ability to animate humans, it’s not quite there, and the emotional response (especially from kids) to the not-quite-human is a really negative one.

Remember the Final Fantasy movie?  That was weird for the same reason.

In fact, you can pretty much trace all the horror/sci-fi stuff all the way back to Frankenstein, and the scariest crap is always “almost human.”

That’s something different!
I was just telling a planter today that I’m so old “iPod” still makes me think of something scary growing under your bed after a meteor shower,

Political Evolution of Zombies…
from Red Menace to Republicans in only 30 years
  by Herbie Popnecker et al.

this also might have a bearing on why you dont want to watch ugly people have sex.