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Letter: Looks familiar

Published 6 February 2013

From Andrew Lockley

Joe Kloc misses a possible explanation for the uncanny valley – the feeling of unease when seeing a robot with a strong human likeness (12 January, p 35). Perhaps because early humans could not easily breed with other hominins, this would have caused an evolutionary pressure to shun those we saw as almost human. Human-like robots may simply fall foul of this instinct.

Milton Keynes, UK

Issue no. 2903 published 9 February 2013

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