Stay Away From Uncanny Valley
Idol Mini-Season 2024
Prompt 4: Uncanny Valley
July 31, 2024
“Uncanny valley” - “The uncanny valley is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids or humanoid robots and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but aren't quite convincingly realistic.”
TechTarget at https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/uncanny-valley#:~:text=The%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,aren't%20quite%20convincingly%20realistic.
STAY AWAY FROM UNCANNY VALLEY
Everyone told Ron not to go to Uncanny Valley, but no one could tell him why.
“You’ll hate it,” said his mother, who didn’t know why.
“The people who live there are weird,” said his friend Bill, who also didn’t know why.
“It’s worse than Area 51,” warned Alice from the bar, who, when sober, was a conspiracy theorist. “The government is trying to revive dead aliens there.”
Alice at least had a reason.
Nevertheless, Ron was headed to Uncanny Valley. It was his job. Ron was a writer for Weird Magazine, an online offshoot of Wired, a legitimate magazine which ran articles on technology, popular culture, and some things that just didn’t fit any category. These were always the most popular articles, which led to Weird, which specialized in the fringes of odd.
“Something’s going on in a place called Uncanny Valley,” his editor Ella had told him. “I want you to find out what.”
Uncanny Valley was just east of Sunny Valley in southern Oregon, a quaint little town with an unusual amount of sun for a generally foggy region.
“I’ll write a travel piece with some investigative journalism,” thought Ron. Despite all the warnings, he was looking forward to this assignment.
Ron drove south from Portland along I-5 for several hours before reaching Uncanny Valley. The scenery was green and gorgeous, with large scarcely-inhabited regions, including Jumpoff Joe Creek, Drain, Jellys Ferry, which was mysteriously missing an apostrophe, and the always-exciting Road 8.
He finally reached the turnoff for Uncanny Valley, which did not merit its own sign, but merely Exit B. A long drive along a very twisty road and finally, there it was: “Uncanny Valley.” The sign was full of bullet holes.
He was expecting battered pickup trucks, plaid, beards, hunting stores, and very red necks.
He was disappointed.
It looked like it was modelled after someone’s “10 Best Small Towns!”, an annual, if boring, article that Wired published. There were cozy restored cottages, a small downtown featuring antique shops, cafes, cookie stores, and a small park with a bench for the coots.
Coots were always great sources of dubious information and local color, and Weird’s readers loved them.
After securing lodgings at one of the many bed-and-breakfasts around town, Rond headed to the Uncannery. The Uncannery was the Valley’s largest employer and the only factory of its kind, a fact of which the locals were justifiably proud.
Ron’s editor had secured a job for him at the Uncannery so that he could blend in and get “the real story.”
The Uncannery was about five years old and located in an old logging company, with its main building now the heart of the business.
When Ron reported for work, his nondescript supervisor, Mary, gave him some rubber gloves, rubber boots, a rubber apron, some safety goggles, and a can opener.
“You’ll be working on the line,” she said. “Do what the others do and don’t screw up.”
Ron’s work partner was a bland middle-aged man known as Smitty.
“We open cans missing their labels,” Smitty said, “figure out what’s in ‘em, and send them off to the Canning and Labelling guys, who seal ‘em back up and put the right labels on them. Right now, we’re working on a shipment from Cambell’s Soup, mostly Beef and Barley soup, but some have vegetables and some don’t.”
“Where do they go from here?” asked Ron.
“Don’t know and don’t care,” said Smitty, as he got back to work.
After a few days of work at the Uncannery, wandering the city, and talking to residents, Ron started getting an unsettling feeling. It had started in the pit of his stomach, worked its way up to the back of his brain, and now it had squiggled its way to the front - there was something weird about the newer citizens of Uncanny Valley, those who had arrived in the last five years.
Their speech was a little bit clipped, with odd accents appearing the longer the conversation lasted. Their eyes didn’t always track and in strong sunlight they lacked a certain spark. And they were always smiling.
This wasn’t true of the older residents, especially the coots, who were older than dirt and frequently wore it, but always with pride.
One day, sitting in the afternoon sun on the coot bench outside the bar (they were no longer welcome inside), Ron asked Coot One if he had noticed the weirdness of the some of the people.
“Eeyup,” said One, and nothing else. The others spat their approval into old tobacco tins.
“It’s the guvm’nt,” added Three.
“Goddamn right,” said Two. “It started with those secret buildings up in the hills. They think we don’t notice, but we’re not dead yet,” adding a vigorous cough for emphasis, which brought on a chorus of old-man noises.
“We’ve said too much,” said One, “you figger out the rest.”
They all got up to leave, a slow-moving production that involved a lot of adjusting of hats.
Ron never saw the coots again.
“Better check those secret buildings out,” thought Ron, as he left to buy some hiking boots and binoculars.
Ron drove out to the little valley where the facility was supposedly located, at least according to the coots. It was only a five-mile drive. It was easy to find. There was sign reading “Government Facility Exit 22.” Of course it sported the obligatory bullet holes, concentrating on “Government.”
When Ron finally arrived, he was confused. He was expecting warning signs, beefy guards, electrified barb wire, and all the accoutrements for a top-secret building. Instead, there was a welcome sign directing him to visitor parking.
The building itself did not look like some concrete-reinforced bunker. Instead, it resembled a small-town hospital.
“What the hell’s going on?” thought Ron.
Once inside, he followed the signs to visitor check-in. It was a generic waiting room with a receptionist, who asked him to please sit down and someone would be with him shortly.
An hour later, someone in a lab coat came out.
“Hi Ron, I’m Dr. Evans. The coots said you’d be coming. You must have a lot of questions and I’m here to answer them.”
“I really have only one question,” Ron replied. “What on earth is going on here?”
“Let me take you to the Center,” Dr. Evens said. “You can see for yourself.”
The Center was a huge room stuffed with computers, hospital beds, and a lot of things Ron didn’t recognize.
What caught his attention was an android. It was very life-like, but it still looked like an android.
“You better sit down,” said Dr. Evans. “You’re looking pale and kind of unsteady. Seeing all this must be hard to process.”
Ron sat on a hospital bed. He kept opening his mouth, but no words came out. He was stunned.
“You know about Area 51,” said Dr. Evans. “Scientists have been trying for years to understand the technology from the various spaceships. We have finally progressed to the point that we can use some of the tech to build the perfect android human.”
“We’ve been placing our androids in Uncanny Valley as tests. But there has always been something a little wrong with them. You noticed the speech issues, and the eyes are never good enough. But now we’re ready for the final phase, a combination of android and human. All we’ve lacked is a suitable human. And you’ve just fallen into our laps.”
Dr. Evans brought out a syringe and injected Ron, who lost consciousness. Forever.
Dr. Evans’ team immediately went to work. They opened Ron up, removed his internal organs and muscles, and replaced everything with a titanium skeleton. They kept his brain, but wiped his memories and implanted new ones.
Once the procedure and tests were all done, Ron 2.0 was taken back to Uncanny Valley, where he resumed working at the Uncannery. No one could tell he wasn’t human.
Ron 2.0 quit his job at Weird and continued to live in Uncanny Valley.
Emboldened by her success with Ron 2.0, Dr. Evans began collecting new specimens for modification from the citizens of Uncanny Valley, with the goal of creating a fully-functioning android city.
Uncanny Valley’s reputation for weirdness continued to grow.
Dr. Evans became so enamored of human-android hybrids that she underwent the process herself.
She is now working on harvesting alien DNA with the goal of reviving an alien and adding aliens to the population of Uncanny Valley.
The aliens can’t wait.
______________________________________
Prompt 4: Uncanny Valley
July 31, 2024
“Uncanny valley” - “The uncanny valley is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids or humanoid robots and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but aren't quite convincingly realistic.”
TechTarget at https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/uncanny-valley#:~:text=The%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,aren't%20quite%20convincingly%20realistic.
STAY AWAY FROM UNCANNY VALLEY
Everyone told Ron not to go to Uncanny Valley, but no one could tell him why.
“You’ll hate it,” said his mother, who didn’t know why.
“The people who live there are weird,” said his friend Bill, who also didn’t know why.
“It’s worse than Area 51,” warned Alice from the bar, who, when sober, was a conspiracy theorist. “The government is trying to revive dead aliens there.”
Alice at least had a reason.
Nevertheless, Ron was headed to Uncanny Valley. It was his job. Ron was a writer for Weird Magazine, an online offshoot of Wired, a legitimate magazine which ran articles on technology, popular culture, and some things that just didn’t fit any category. These were always the most popular articles, which led to Weird, which specialized in the fringes of odd.
“Something’s going on in a place called Uncanny Valley,” his editor Ella had told him. “I want you to find out what.”
Uncanny Valley was just east of Sunny Valley in southern Oregon, a quaint little town with an unusual amount of sun for a generally foggy region.
“I’ll write a travel piece with some investigative journalism,” thought Ron. Despite all the warnings, he was looking forward to this assignment.
Ron drove south from Portland along I-5 for several hours before reaching Uncanny Valley. The scenery was green and gorgeous, with large scarcely-inhabited regions, including Jumpoff Joe Creek, Drain, Jellys Ferry, which was mysteriously missing an apostrophe, and the always-exciting Road 8.
He finally reached the turnoff for Uncanny Valley, which did not merit its own sign, but merely Exit B. A long drive along a very twisty road and finally, there it was: “Uncanny Valley.” The sign was full of bullet holes.
He was expecting battered pickup trucks, plaid, beards, hunting stores, and very red necks.
He was disappointed.
It looked like it was modelled after someone’s “10 Best Small Towns!”, an annual, if boring, article that Wired published. There were cozy restored cottages, a small downtown featuring antique shops, cafes, cookie stores, and a small park with a bench for the coots.
Coots were always great sources of dubious information and local color, and Weird’s readers loved them.
After securing lodgings at one of the many bed-and-breakfasts around town, Rond headed to the Uncannery. The Uncannery was the Valley’s largest employer and the only factory of its kind, a fact of which the locals were justifiably proud.
Ron’s editor had secured a job for him at the Uncannery so that he could blend in and get “the real story.”
The Uncannery was about five years old and located in an old logging company, with its main building now the heart of the business.
When Ron reported for work, his nondescript supervisor, Mary, gave him some rubber gloves, rubber boots, a rubber apron, some safety goggles, and a can opener.
“You’ll be working on the line,” she said. “Do what the others do and don’t screw up.”
Ron’s work partner was a bland middle-aged man known as Smitty.
“We open cans missing their labels,” Smitty said, “figure out what’s in ‘em, and send them off to the Canning and Labelling guys, who seal ‘em back up and put the right labels on them. Right now, we’re working on a shipment from Cambell’s Soup, mostly Beef and Barley soup, but some have vegetables and some don’t.”
“Where do they go from here?” asked Ron.
“Don’t know and don’t care,” said Smitty, as he got back to work.
After a few days of work at the Uncannery, wandering the city, and talking to residents, Ron started getting an unsettling feeling. It had started in the pit of his stomach, worked its way up to the back of his brain, and now it had squiggled its way to the front - there was something weird about the newer citizens of Uncanny Valley, those who had arrived in the last five years.
Their speech was a little bit clipped, with odd accents appearing the longer the conversation lasted. Their eyes didn’t always track and in strong sunlight they lacked a certain spark. And they were always smiling.
This wasn’t true of the older residents, especially the coots, who were older than dirt and frequently wore it, but always with pride.
One day, sitting in the afternoon sun on the coot bench outside the bar (they were no longer welcome inside), Ron asked Coot One if he had noticed the weirdness of the some of the people.
“Eeyup,” said One, and nothing else. The others spat their approval into old tobacco tins.
“It’s the guvm’nt,” added Three.
“Goddamn right,” said Two. “It started with those secret buildings up in the hills. They think we don’t notice, but we’re not dead yet,” adding a vigorous cough for emphasis, which brought on a chorus of old-man noises.
“We’ve said too much,” said One, “you figger out the rest.”
They all got up to leave, a slow-moving production that involved a lot of adjusting of hats.
Ron never saw the coots again.
“Better check those secret buildings out,” thought Ron, as he left to buy some hiking boots and binoculars.
Ron drove out to the little valley where the facility was supposedly located, at least according to the coots. It was only a five-mile drive. It was easy to find. There was sign reading “Government Facility Exit 22.” Of course it sported the obligatory bullet holes, concentrating on “Government.”
When Ron finally arrived, he was confused. He was expecting warning signs, beefy guards, electrified barb wire, and all the accoutrements for a top-secret building. Instead, there was a welcome sign directing him to visitor parking.
The building itself did not look like some concrete-reinforced bunker. Instead, it resembled a small-town hospital.
“What the hell’s going on?” thought Ron.
Once inside, he followed the signs to visitor check-in. It was a generic waiting room with a receptionist, who asked him to please sit down and someone would be with him shortly.
An hour later, someone in a lab coat came out.
“Hi Ron, I’m Dr. Evans. The coots said you’d be coming. You must have a lot of questions and I’m here to answer them.”
“I really have only one question,” Ron replied. “What on earth is going on here?”
“Let me take you to the Center,” Dr. Evens said. “You can see for yourself.”
The Center was a huge room stuffed with computers, hospital beds, and a lot of things Ron didn’t recognize.
What caught his attention was an android. It was very life-like, but it still looked like an android.
“You better sit down,” said Dr. Evans. “You’re looking pale and kind of unsteady. Seeing all this must be hard to process.”
Ron sat on a hospital bed. He kept opening his mouth, but no words came out. He was stunned.
“You know about Area 51,” said Dr. Evans. “Scientists have been trying for years to understand the technology from the various spaceships. We have finally progressed to the point that we can use some of the tech to build the perfect android human.”
“We’ve been placing our androids in Uncanny Valley as tests. But there has always been something a little wrong with them. You noticed the speech issues, and the eyes are never good enough. But now we’re ready for the final phase, a combination of android and human. All we’ve lacked is a suitable human. And you’ve just fallen into our laps.”
Dr. Evans brought out a syringe and injected Ron, who lost consciousness. Forever.
Dr. Evans’ team immediately went to work. They opened Ron up, removed his internal organs and muscles, and replaced everything with a titanium skeleton. They kept his brain, but wiped his memories and implanted new ones.
Once the procedure and tests were all done, Ron 2.0 was taken back to Uncanny Valley, where he resumed working at the Uncannery. No one could tell he wasn’t human.
Ron 2.0 quit his job at Weird and continued to live in Uncanny Valley.
Emboldened by her success with Ron 2.0, Dr. Evans began collecting new specimens for modification from the citizens of Uncanny Valley, with the goal of creating a fully-functioning android city.
Uncanny Valley’s reputation for weirdness continued to grow.
Dr. Evans became so enamored of human-android hybrids that she underwent the process herself.
She is now working on harvesting alien DNA with the goal of reviving an alien and adding aliens to the population of Uncanny Valley.
The aliens can’t wait.
______________________________________