Wikipedia says “The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity ... seeing [Automaton Robotics]’ hand and forearm move in almost human fashion is a bit on the disturbing side.

Robotics professor Masahiro Mori named this phenomenon the “uncanny valley” in 1970: Models that look like human faces but are a bit off bring fear and disgust to many observers. This effect ...

When things are even just a little, tiny bit off, we notice. That’s the theory behind the “uncanny valley,” the idea that the closer humanoid robots look to real people, the more that subtle ...