Uncanny Valley: A compass for a digital morality?

Mannequin in Old Melbourne Gaol. Photo: Flickr/GSV CC BY 2.0

As a child of about seven or eight years old, I recall visiting the Old Melbourne Gaol, and feeling completely creeped out by the mannequins, especially when seeing one in a cell through the peephole.

Tonight, I saw two different mannequins, dressed as a male and a female. Although less irrational than when I was younger, I felt no less creeped out.

It turns out that there is a term to describe this unease: the "uncanny valley".

I don't want to spend all day explaining the concept, so the short version is that, in 1970, Masahiro Mori, a Japanese roboticist, developed the hypothesis that human-like things are creepy, depending on how true to life they are.

Put simply, nobody gets creeped out until the thing gets closer to looking like a human (whether stationary or moving), but where it is not quite right. Think of those creepy "time out" dolls.

But apparently, it gets less creepy after a certain point (I am not convinced by this - to me it's all creepy). Below is the diagram explaining why it's called a "valley".

Uncanny Valley: Nobody cares until it starts to look like, but not quite be, a human. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

I rediscovered this feeling recently when reading an article in the Paris Review about Duane Hanson. Hanson made creepy human figures and then took Polaroid photographs of them. Just looking at the photos in the article creeped me out. I am so glad I am not Duane Hanson.

Then I remembered why the idea was so fresh in my mind. In Adelaide last month, I visited the SA Gallery and saw the work Woman with Laundry Basket. It creeped me out. I didn't know this until just now, but it is one of Hanson's pieces.

But I had just been at the SA Museum's "Curious Beasts" exhibition which had a number of examples of vintage "mermaids" and other bits and pieces of fantastic scams created by taxidermists for parlour tricks. I found these creepy, too.

After the exhibition, I walk into the stuffed animals of Africa part of the museum. Looking into the eyes of tigers and lions and hyenas and other beasts that once feasted on my rather distant ancestors put the wind up me, too. Around the corner, and there is an enormous lion sitting in a glass case. AND ITS BLOODY TAIL MOVED. 

Turns out it has a car windscreen wiper motor in it, and it flicks the tail every 45 seconds or so. Creepy.

So when I walk over to the museum and see the pregnant woman with the laundry basket, dressed as many women did when I was seven or eight years old, I was on creepy high alert. In the South Australian Gallery, you can walk right up to the figure. 

You can see the details of her veins. If she had moved I would have died of fright. Thank goodness there were no windscreen wiper motors in sight.

The difference between moving and stationary in creepy factor is slight, but between moving and stationary, moving increases the I-am-going-to-die-of-fright factor considerably. Thank goodness none of those mannequins in the Old Melbourne Gaol were mobile.

Do you want to see what a contemporary freaky creepy moving but stuck in the uncanny valley thing looks like? Check this out: http://www.cubo.cc/creepygirl/. If you don't trust me, then go to the website and use the link from there. And then tell me this isn't creepy.

So why is this of interest? It turns out that DNA could solve the data storage problem. What?

Data can be stored on DNA, and DNA can be stored on a CD. I am at maximum creepiness. And this I learn from the CSIRO.

That's right, the human genome takes up only 3.3 gigabytes. We could have put ourselves on hard-drives years ago.

This reminds me of the atomic bomb. We don't know how to save the planet, but we do know how to destroy it. That uncanny valley is just getting wider, isn't it?

One area that political science is only just starting to address is the concept of a digital morality. Having grown up with computers and the internet, I have come full circle. I've adopted technology early on, reached saturation point, and most recently, gone into slow mode. The other is not sustainable.

Yet scientists are driving us into a digital Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch), by George Bernard Shaw. In Shaw's self-proclaimed, often over-looked masterpiece, some people learn how to live until they are 1,000 years old. Not through scientific advancement, but through individual maturity, or wisdom and experience.

The trick was that people only needed to know how to live long lives. The "short-livers" did not have this capability and could barely survive in the presence of "long-livers". 

If we are to believe commentators of Shaw's work, his theme is political, where short-livers need government, but once humans can live for 1,000 years, they are, as competent individuals, capable of living without government.

But what if we can live for 1,000 years, not because of our wisdom and experience, but because of machines that not only interact but become part of people?

This sounds far-fetched. But the CSIRO has already made "bits" of humans, using 3D printers, that are surgically implanted.

Much like atomic bombs, we don't know how to live for 1,000 years, but we may do so anyway because of machines. I've come a long way from being creeped out in the Old Melbourne Gaol. Now I am falling down the uncanny valley and bashing my head all the way down.

Which brings me to my point. Why do we feel creeped out by human-like things? Is there some instinctual warning going on here? Is it a new thing? Have we, as humans, developed new instincts to warn us of the danger we are heading towards?

While I do not have the answers, I do suspect that there is something in the uncanny valley hypothesis that might provide a compass for developing a philosophy, an ethic, or maybe just an idea, of a sense of a digital morality.

While I have long hoped to be dead well before all of this became plausible, each new day makes the case for a concept of digital morality ever more urgent. 

Otherwise, like the atomic bomb, we will be capable of doing something before we know whether we should even be capable of doing such a thing in the first place. Regrettably, I don't hold much hope for the future.

Travel Notes: The Pyramids of Giza, Cairo, 20-21 December 2006 and a fair whack of culture shock

Visiting the Pyramids at Giza via "The Stables" with Amr (left) and The Guide (right), 21 December 2006

In this post I transcribe my original travel diary from the dates shown. It marks the beginnings of my de-Orientalising process, even though writing this is Orientalist. There are certain political representatives who need to do this, but that is another story. On the 19th December, we visited Petra, Jordan, and I will write a separate entry from my diary for that day. While our arrival in Jordan had given me a fair dose of culture shock, Egypt took this to a level I have never experienced since or ever. Syria was so much easier to get around, and returning to Amman after Cairo was relaxing. Cairo's population is enormous, and negotiation is a way of life. Rather than live on the "Western" part of town, we decided to delve into what we called the "local" side of town. While this was very rewarding, and our guide Amr was more than honourable, for our last night we crossed the Nile and stayed at the Hotel Windsor, which served as the British Officer's Club during the Great War. On the other side of the Nile, every step I took required a negotiation. It was exhausting. But by the time I returned to Amman, my culture shock was at least becoming manageable. I am exhausted just reading these notes and cannot believe we did all this in the space of a few days, not to mention the shortest shoestring budget imaginable. And we did not arrange anything and thought we would just go with the flow (or torrent as it turned out!) I have left out a few bits that are just for me.

CBR-SYD-Bangkok-Dubai-Amman, Jordan, 14-15 December 2006

To put my sense of culture shock into context, we'd left Canberra on 14th December 2006, caught the Murray's bus to Sydney Airport, and had a stop-over in Dubai.

Murray's Coaches 7am CBR-SYD, left SYD at 1950. Stopped Bangkok, not allowed off plane. Arrived Dubai, UAE, Friday 15 December 5am local time. Went to Gold Souq, stayed at Millennium Airport [hotel] until 12pm. Left Dubai 2pm local ->Dubai = +2 hours on Amman.

I remember the arrival at Amman airport. I couldn't tell who was an official and who wasn't, and some people would help and then want money and then others would insist on helping and not want money, and others would want money, insist on helping for free, and then want money. In a little over ten days, returning to this airport would be like returning to my own home in comparison to Egypt.

Friday 15th December arrive Amman 4pm. [Met the family and gave out all the gifts]. Five days later we would be in Cairo.

Amman, Jordan, 16-17 December 2006

Returning home from visiting family, there was a young boy standing on the side of the road, crying. He sold pieces of candy from a box to cars stopped at the traffic lights. The tears were streaming down his face. His box of candy was on the road, flattened by the traffic. We gave him some money, after a debate about the appropriate amount. Later I wrote this:

Western Guilt Trip

Western guilt is that feeling the

rich man had when he asked

Jesus how to enter the Kingdom

of Heaven. But Westerners continue

to decorate the

eye of the needle, never knowing

they are simply

camels.

The next day, the same boy was there, crying, his box of candy flattened in the traffic. People gave him money.

Vintage Visa Stamps for Egypt!

Amman, Jordan, 18 December 2006

Collected visas from Egyptian Embassy at 2pm. I remember the place was packed. It was like a school tuckshop, undercover, but with exposed sides and rails leading up to a window. 

Petra, Jordan, 19 December 2006

Transcription and photographs in a separate entry.

Cairo, Egypt, 20 December 2006

EgyptAir from Amman to Cairo [I remember everybody clapped when the aeroplane landed safely]. Saw Suez Canal on the descent to Cairo. Met by "official" guide [before we cleared customs] - booked hotel for $US40, paid $US12 for "limousine" to hotel. [I still have the business card from the "travel agent" and the company still exists!] Booked 6 hour trip to pyramids for $US35. Hotel was manky - met Amr - [who appeared to be a] dodgy perfume seller [Note: This was my initial and arrogant Westerner impression that would change rapidly], but made a deal to be shown around.

Hotel Aman [ironically] - cost $US40. Used Net on level 8, room was level 9. I remember the bed was terrible and itchy. The bedspread felt like it had fleas. The room was old, and "clean" by standards we would come to know over time. I remember the traffic - all night without stopping, but no air conditioning so the window had to stay open. I remember being exhausted for our first full day there. 

Cairo, Egypt, 21 December 2006

Lift broken in the morning - went to stairs but it was horrible, in very old disrepair and in darkness [I recall going down a couple of flights and we could hear things moving around. We ended up being unable to see - in total darkness - and ran back upstairs] - went back up to level 9, caught dodgy service elevator.

The "officials" were the same as Amr and "the company". Amr seemed friendlier - especially to Australians - stickers, koalas etc in his shop. Also showed "recommendations" from other Australians but I had to read them - his English is very poor. Amr took us to a busy shop for shawerma, bought a camera for £EGP50 [$AUD11.15 exchange rate on this day].

I lose track of things here, but I remember we decided to find a place to stay as there was no way we could stay another night in Aman Hotel. I can't find it on Google maps. So we went to a decent looking hotel and asked the price: $US90 per night. What? In Cairo where it was cheaper than anywhere? So we go to the next hotel. $US90 per night. We might as well go to the other side of the Nile and stay at the Hilton. Then we go back to "the company". The older guy says $US40 per night (same as Aman Hotel). So we go back to the very same hotels with Amr, and each one of them is suddenly $US40 per night. We found a place that we could live with and, at less than half the "non-company" price, our shoestring survived. We must have cancelled the pyramids tour with the "official" company... We made Amr come with us. He rode a horse (pictured above) as part of the package.

Pyramid of Khafre, Giza

Met Amr at "the company's" perfume shop at 8.45am. Drove to "The Stables" near pyramids - fee for 2 x camels £EGP500 [$AUD111.46 each] "including visits to the tombs (not the pyramids) and five hours. This didn't happen! So paid £EGP400 [$AUD89.17 each] - still a rip off.

At Giza, I had to "negotiate" with the "boss". He was a fairly big man. Paid Imhotep and the other kid leading our camels £EGP10 each and the guide £EGP20 - the guide wanted 40 but I wouldn't budge I was beginning to get into the groove but exhausted.

I recall the large, bearded man in a chocolate brown dish-dash holding a shepherd's crook invited me inside the shop for the handover of the money. There was nothing untoward, and he simply said "pay whatever you think it was worth. The truth ism, it was worth every cent. As I tried to get back in to the car, children appeared from everywhere, and a woman in a hijab with a young baby and all of the children kept begging, and pressing me as I made my way back to the car. I had to push the hands out as I closed the door.

It was all a strange game. The trip in through the back gates was all nudge-nudge wink-wink past the guard, the trip in was peaceful. At the pyramids, a guard came up to us and Amr, and queried Amr. We said we were students (which we were) visiting a fellow student (which, technically, we were). The guard said we had come through the stables illegally, angling for some money. I don't remember what happened - I think he left us alone when we wouldn't budge. After Petra, I was disappointed in the pyramids. Who does that? Who is disappointed by the pyramids? For me, it was the end of the Disneyfication of everything. 

So many romantic movies about the pyramids. Don't get me wrong, the only surviving original Great Wonder of the Ancient World. The pyramids are impressive. And I wonder had we come in by the buses, like many of the tourists did, would it have been different? But we met the "official" guide BEFORE we got through customs on arrival. So it was a lesson learnt very quickly, but a lesson that was not helpful in either Jordan or Syria, where such things didn't happen to us ever.

Would I change a thing? Maybe global peace and justice and I would never have watched Disney in my life. But as far as things I could control? No. I wouldn't change a thing. Amr turned out to be a wonderful host.

Amr said to meet him at the shop at 9pm. He was late and arrived at 2130 - but then took us to a wedding, then to his house (by about) 2330. Had dinner and then home by after 0130.

We drove for what seemed like hours. It was well outside the main city. the roads were all rough and dirt. Sometimes lined with shops bursting at the seems with cheap clothes and overflow-style goods, with white light so bright it was blinding and crowds of people everywhere. The weeding was in a space between apartment buildings. The dirt ground was strewn with rubbish. But the hospitality was outstanding. We drank Cocal Cola provided by our hosts, and I smoked an argilleh Egyptian style - a drier tobacco with the coals placed directly on the tobacco. We were given chairs and a table to sit at while the married couple sat on a stage with brilliant light and music blaring. 

The Great Sphinx, Giza, Egypt

The argilleh man didn't speak but he would nod and smile. I watched as he would change the coals with his bare hands. With his bare hands! Later, people were asked to pledge money to the couple, and there would be ululations from the women and cheers and clapping from the men. I took my turn. I don't remember how much I gave but it was well-received. 

We went on further into suburbia and we arrived on a dirt street that had craters in it, and not a light to be seen. As we entered Amr's building, you coudl see all the shoes piled up outside people's doors. I guess it was pretty late. We met his mother in the vestibule, she was very nice. And then we entered his house.

It was filled with antiques. Much of the furnishings were gilded. It was a magnificent contrast with outside. Amr's wife was very sweet and they had a young baby, Mahmout. We ate dinner with them at their large table. Chicken pieces with rice from memory.

And there's me, suffering from culture shock, physically knackered, Westernly guilty, stupidly ignorant, but strangely starting to make sense of what cannot be made sense of - I remember talking with one man who said words to the effect of:

You see all this? You want to change it? Make it all how you live? It is impossible. You can only be rich while we are poor. You want to change it? Then you have to give something up. There is a limit to wealth. It has to be shared. We can't magically make wealth. You have to give something up. Westerners have to give something up. That's why you will never change this...

Pyramid of Khufu/Cheops/Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, smaller pyramid in foreground, Khafre on left

Travel Notes: Road Trip: Palmyra, Ma'aloula, and Saidnaya, Syria, 13th January 2007

Outside the Temple of Bel, Palmyra, Syria, 13 January 2007. The building has since been destroyed.

Well before the current conflict, I was able to travel to Palmyra, Syria. The Temple of Bel in the photograph above has since been confirmed destroyed. I am fortunate to have seen it, but it is a sad loss for the history of humanity, not to mention the many people who have lost their lives in the region. Syria is a beautiful country, and I felt safer there than I did in Sydney on a Saturday night. The people were very hospitable, and what you saw is what you got. Like most of the region, religious tolerance is a part of everyday life that is rarely reported in the Australian news media.

The photograph below shows how the building looks today. While going back through my travel diaries, I recalled a story about a travel guide, Fayid, who had studied at the University of Western Sydney, and a young Bedouin camel operator, who Peter Manning and his partner Carole met at Palmyra sometime in 2005-6. The story is mentioned on pp. 130-1 of Manning's (2006) book Us and Them: A Journalist's Investigation of Media, Muslims and the Middle East.

Temple of Bel, Palmyra, Syria, 28 March 2016. Photo by Jawad Shaar CC-BY 4.0

We, too, had met Farid (and the young boy on the camel) at Palmyra on 13th January 2007. I can’t remember whether I read Manning's book or shared the “small world” experience (on p. 130) first. Anyway, yesterday I was writing up some of my travel diaries as blog posts, remembered the encounter with Farid, found his business card, re-read the book, and wondered what had happened to Farid and the boy. Here is the excerpt from Us and Them:

Carole chose to see much of this on the back of a young Bedouin boy's camel. I got talking to another guide, Fayid, who promised to take us to the amazing funerary tombs out to the west of the Roman city. Fayid, who had lived in Australia for seven years and studied at the University of Western Sydney, spoke perfect Australian.

Below, I have transcribed the diary as is, exercising some editorial licence, and removing the parts that are for me alone.

Damascus, Saturday 13th January 2007

Woke to coffee and wake-up call after receiving a wrong number at 1:30am! Taxi driver was waiting at 7:15am, went to Syrian and Overseas Bank - could only withdraw 5,000 Syrian pounds (SYP) [my diary records the following exchange rates: $1 USD = 49.8 SYP; $1 AUD = 32.16 SYP; 1 Jordanian Dinar (JOD) = 64.75 SYP]. Memorial to the north of Damascus built and funded by North Korea. Blue buildings (must have connections) for housing public servants. Railway line east-west built by Ottomans, tax-free zone north of Damascus.

We had agreed $100 USD for the trip with the driver, he was a smoker and we could smoke. The plan was to go to Palmyra, then on the way back to Ma'aloula, then Saidnaya.

After 230-odd kilometres, we arrived at the entrance to the Temple of Bel - it cost me 75 SYP and my wife 10 SYP to get in.

Palmyra, Syria, 13th January 2007

We met a guy who stated he had been to the University of Western Sydney and earned a diploma of interpreting, but his business card [which I still have] read Sydney University.

Palmyra, Syria, 13th January 2007

He charged us 200 SYP to visit the tombs in the Valley of Tombs [Wadi al-Qubur]. He joined us in our cab and took us to the museum to get the keys to the tombs... and we had to take the guide and the guy with the keys in the taxi.

The rest of my notes are bullet points. We visited a number of the tombs, and I recall that the faces of people on the relief sculptures had been scratched off centuries before. Unfortunately, many of the tombs have since been destroyed. Australian Adjunct Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Ross Burns, has maintained a comprehensive list of the major historical and architectural wonders of Syria at his website Monuments of Syria.

There was also an enormous castle on the hill overlooking Palmyra. 

Palmyra Castle or Qalat al-Ma'ani. Photo by  Jerzy Strzelecki CC-BY-SA 3.0

After Palmyra, we returned via Ma'aloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus of Nazareth, is still spoken. The photograph below is from the Convent of Saint Takla, Ma'aloula, looking from East to West.

View from Convent of Saint Takla (Mar Taqla), Ma'alouba, Syria, 13th January 2013

In February 2013, twelve nuns from this convent were abducted, and were not released until March 2014. In the photograph, I am standing on the rooftop of the convent.

There is an interesting legend about the location, in that Taqla, a Christian woman, while running away from Roman soldiers and a pagan marriage, came to a cliff. The mountain split open, and she escaped her pursuers. You can read more about the monastery here.

Later, we went to Saidnaya, and saw what is believed to be an original picture of the Virgin Mary painted by St Luke at the Our Lady of Saydnaya Monastery. Much like the churches in Jerusalem, it was super-creepy.

On the trip back, I went to an ATM and made the mistake of withdrawing most of my cash to pay for our hotel room. The hotel would only accept a credit card. After much deliberation, we could pay in US dollars, but we could not exchange the money in the hotel. I went downtown to the black market dealers and they changed my Syrian pounds for US dollars, and I paid for the hotel room with no problems.

This was my first lesson in understanding the consequences of a "weak" state, Sanctions by the US were biting hard. There were no McDonalds or KFC outlets, unlike Jordan and Egypt. The simple fact was that foreign companies would only trade in US dollars, making the local currency virtually worthless.

Cash in Iraq suffered the same fate after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Incidentally, the former Iraqi leader had been hanged two weeks before this trip, and I did not meet a single person in the region who was happy about what had transpired. Despite the ideas of "freedom" for the region harped on about by the Australian news media, most saw this as little more than neo-colonialism.

It is now more than a decade since I travelled to Palmyra. Everything that has transpired in the region since has been a great shame. Humans and human history have suffered. But one only need to look to the history of this region, the fertile crescent, the cradle of civilisation, the epicentre of faith. It has been there since the beginning, it has survived many conflicts, and its existence has evolved time and again. I daresay it will be there at the end, too.