Capterra Glossary
Uncanny valley
‘Uncanny valley’ is a term coined by Masahiro Mori, a former professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The uncanny valley theory describes the phenomenon in which humans feel a sense of uneasiness the more realistic humanoid robots become. In this assertion, Mori states that robots can be appealing to humans but only to a certain extent. Once a humanoid robot becomes too life-like, humans begin to feel a sense of discomfort.
What Small and Midsize Businesses Need to Know About Uncanny valley
The uncanny valley is an important hypothesis to understand, especially for small businesses and startups that operate in the technical industry. If a company seeks to sell humanoid robots or even uses them in marketing campaigns, the more life-like they seem, the more off-putting they may be to certain audiences. This phenomenon can also be applied to more common technological advancements used by growing businesses, such as chatbots. Businesses should be wary of chatbots that seem too robotic or too humanistic. In other words, companies should aim to merge artificial intelligence with human mannerisms to produce technology that optimizes business processes and does not make customers feel uncomfortable.
Related Terms
- Synchronous
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Intranet
- Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR)
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Managed Service Provider (MSP)
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- WAN (Wide-Area Network)
- Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Augmented Reality (AR)
- Chief Information Officer (CIO)
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- Service-Level Agreement (SLA)
- Scalability
- Data Center
- Authorization
- Multitenancy