‘Better than a real man’: young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends::Twenty-five-year-old Chinese office worker Tufei says her boyfriend has everything she could ask for in a romantic partner: he’s kind, empathetic, and sometimes they talk for hours.
Things like this make me wonder if the uncanny valley exists because we’ve previously developed computer technology in the past, and it destroyed civilization, taking with it everyone who couldn’t easily distinguish between humans and AI.
I like to think uncanny valley exists because of other homo species we would have interacted with in pre-history. Obviously this is just a fun theory since we have evidence of mixing.
The simple explanation I’ve heard is that the uncanny valley protects us from diseases etc. by making us stay away from very sick or dead people. A bloated corpse is still human, so you need some part of your head to say “stay away from that thing”.
Or genetic defects.
“Something about that person is extremely off-putting. I do believe I’m not going have sex with them.”