Uncanny valley
Etymology
Coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970 as "bukimi no tani" (不気味の谷), literally "valley of eeriness" — the dip in a graph plotting comfort against human-likeness. "Uncanny" translates his "bukimi" and echoes Freud’s "unheimlich." Flagged as a coinage.
noun phrase · /un-KAN-ee VAL-ee/
The eerie discomfort we feel toward something almost, but not quite, convincingly human.
What it names
The specific creepiness of lifelike robots, CGI faces, and AI voices — useful for talking about where realism backfires.
Example
The de-aged actor landed deep in the uncanny valley, his smooth face somehow more disturbing than a wrinkled one.
Related idea
Compare the broader uncanny, Freud’s unsettling return of the familiar-made-strange; the uncanny valley is its narrow, modern case for near-human likenesses.