“Alia studied the steel balls which were his eyes, no human expression there. The hood concealed the line of his jaw. His mouth remained firm though. Great strength in it... and determination. His words had carried a reassuring intensity. “...dare much more...” That was a thing Duncan Idaho might have said. Had the Tleilaxu fashioned their ghola better than they knew – or was this mere sham, part of their conditioning?” (Herbert, p. 123)

“Free yourself from the ghola, Duncan.”
“How?”
“You’re human. Do a human thing.”
“I’m a ghola!”
”But your flesh is human. Duncan’s in there.”
“...Something’s in there.” (Herbert, p. 257)

On this side of the valley, the robot begins to achieve the level of perfection necessary to deceive the human eye, and thus the level of human empathy begins to rise exponentially, as the closer the robot comes to looking, acting and behaving human, the more human to human empathy and love it will receive from real human beings.

The first three examples in this area are right on the edge, just above the uncanny creepy pit of the graph in their appearance, but still known to be robots. These three cases are the robots from the movie “A.I.”: David, and Gigolo Joe, Lieutenant Commander Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, and Hiroshi Ishiguro’s “Geminoid HI-1”. In the case of David, Gigolo Joe and Data, the robots are nearly indistinguishable from human in their forms and behaviours, but each of them still has an imperfect element, if an endearing one. David’s flaw is simply that he can never age, Joe’s hair is a little plastic and his programming is perhaps overly whimsical, and Data is visibly pale, has yellow eyes, cannot whistle and wishes for emotions. However, none of these characteristics is disturbing, and the viewer begins to identify with the robot again partially because of these slight flaws. They feel empathy for the robot’s hubris, and, because of this more human type of imperfection instead of a visual impediment, their uncanny feelings lesson slightly. We have still not reached the high levels of empathy as before, but we are crawling out of the creepy side of realistic near-human entities. However, in the case of the Geminoid HI-1, this endearing affection is right on the edge of this creepy/not border. “In June 2006 at the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Keihanna, Japan, reporters and scientists gathered for the unveiling of a major new project by Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro. Once everyone had arrived, an assistant pulled back a curtain to reveal…another Dr. Ishiguro? Certainly the second figure had a very strong resemblance to Dr. Ishiguro, wearing the same glasses and dressed in the same clothing. Seated in a chair, the duplicate was rocking one foot back and forth, blinking and adjusting itself. It looked around and then, in ordinary Japanese, introduced itself; it was named Geminoid HI-1. The strikingly realistic robot has since been met largely with wonder and admiration, which could mark success for Ishiguro in more ways than the obvious. Although Ishiguro's earlier android projects were only a little less realistic, they tended to disturb viewers. (Brook, para. 1-2) In the case of the Geminoid, near human perfection is very nearly achieved, and horror is mostly replaced with awe, placing him on the positive side of the valley.

Of course, all of these examples still display single faults, and are still perceived as not being human. The next and last level of the graph is the robot or non-human that cannot be noticed as being such. Examples of this include Duncan Idaho, the ghola from the quotes above, a cloned human-cyborg from the “Dune” series, the replicants from “Blade Runner”, Andrew from “Bicentennial Man” in his final form, Tima from Tezuka’s “Metropolis”, LeeLoo from “The 5th Element”, and the Beta Unit from “The Last Starfighter”. In all of these cases, the robots are completely indistinguishable from human beings, and because of this, their interactions with humans are nearly the same as a human’s interaction with other humans. Empathy levels are off the previous charts because the humans they encounter have no reason not to believe them to be human. The humans they are with fall in love with them, fight for them, and grant them all the responsibilities and respect they would give other humans. Of course, each of these examples are on different points of the graph; Duncan is known to be a clone, and at first others respond as if he is some sort of toy or a clever trick, the replicants are hunted down, and their life-spans are limited because of the fear of them replacing humans, Andrew spends his entire existence fighting to be considered legally human, Tima’s robotic natures ultimately do come out, LeeLoo has skills that no human could possibly have, and the beta unit is still a bit comical in its interactions; but generally, these example are shooting out of the uncanny valley and entering the realm of human interactions.

In short, robots and non-humans range in design from barely human to being indistinguishable from human, and at each of these stages their interactions with humans will present differing levels of empathy, ranging from affection to revulsion to love. Through these examples one can see how these various design types were used as plot devices, as robots are defined as evil or good, how their flaws sometimes endear and sometimes repel, and how their position on the graph changes how others identify or interact with them, both as a viewer or in their interactions with other characters. Some of them are mere tools, some are vicious killers, and others walk the blurry moral line of what it means to be human at all. But in the end, regardless of how evil or nice or realistic or cute these robots are, it is our reaction to them and our level of empathy that determines how well they will be accepted or reacted against, something to keep in mind as more sophisticated technologies start to bring these uncanny beings to both real and screen life.

Here ends the path of the uncanny valley, from pure robot, to almost-human to complete human. If you wish to return to the previous sections or view the full references and filmography you can use the links in the graph below.