I don't get the sense the author really understands the existing literature.
In fact, I think the author has misunderstood the main point from Mori's 1970 paper[123], the counter-intuitive relationship between "affinity"[z] and human-likeness -- the uncanny valley itself.
For a specific example, consider the discussion of Mori's "famous graph" near the beginning of the article.
> the graph assumes you have an objective and linear way to measure similarity to humans. In reality, we rely on human intuition to know what is more or less similar, and this leads to wildly inconsistent determinations.
Mori's graph isn't a data plot. It's a drawing to illustrate the concept (the "valley") in an intuitive way.
I am certain that Mori understood very well (just from reading the paper, haven't a clue about anything else about him) that human perception is not an objective or linear function.
The article circles back to repeat its own talking points many times, is full of strange and unsupported claims, and the author keeps circling back to their (mis)understanding that "more human" appearance should result in a proportional "less unease", i.e. the "myth" Mori was busting way back in 1970.
This prompted me to read the paper again, so thanks for that!
Agree, and there's also further research in babies that have demonstrated the "facial recognition" or "more human appearance = safer" isn't all that true, as babies will look at congruent objects (two blocks over one smaller block over a round background) just as much as faces (Macchi Cassia et al., 2008).
I agree. TFA calls out the “fundamental weakness” of the theory as a lack of specificity in definition and measurement, then goes on to make further opinionated statements as far as a proclaimed definition without referencing the much deeper history of the uncanny in literature (e.g. The Sandman, Frankenstein) and philosophy (Jentsch and Freud).
Yeah, the constant repetition was actually lulling me into a deep boredom. And everything discussed was anecdotal. No actual research to support anything being said. Who wrote this? Or upvoted it?
For a specific example, consider the discussion of Mori's "famous graph" near the beginning of the article.
> the graph assumes you have an objective and linear way to measure similarity to humans. In reality, we rely on human intuition to know what is more or less similar, and this leads to wildly inconsistent determinations.
Mori's graph isn't a data plot. It's a drawing to illustrate the concept (the "valley") in an intuitive way. I am certain that Mori understood very well (just from reading the paper, haven't a clue about anything else about him) that human perception is not an objective or linear function.
The article circles back to repeat its own talking points many times, is full of strange and unsupported claims, and the author keeps circling back to their (mis)understanding that "more human" appearance should result in a proportional "less unease", i.e. the "myth" Mori was busting way back in 1970.
This prompted me to read the paper again, so thanks for that!
[123] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6213238
[z] https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11496/what-is-a...