The term “uncanny valley” refers to the sensation you get when you’re watching something—an animation or a humanoid robot—that is almost, but not exactly, like a real person. The new sci-fi short Uncanny Valley looks at what happens when the two become so similar that it’s hard to tell when a human ends and an animation begins.
At first, Uncanny Valley looks like the old, clichéd trope of future video game addicts essentially becoming drug addicts, living in flophouses and waiting for their next virtual reality fix.
Then, as Cory Doctorow writes on BoingBoing, it veers off into some extremely interesting territory. If that wasn’t enough to get you to watch, it’s also been endorsed by no less an authority than sci-fi legend William Gibson.
[Via Slate]