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Research on the uncanny valley effect in artificial intelligence news anchors

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Abstract

The uncanny valley effect has sparked interest in fields such as humanoid robotics and hyper-realistic virtual animation. Nonetheless, proof of its existence in artificial intelligence (AI) news anchors remains limited. This study examined the existence and effect of the uncanny valley in AI news anchors. Particularly, it delved into human perception and behavior during interactions with AI news anchors. Results showed that AI news anchors failed to establish emotional bonds with audiences, and thus fell within the uncanny valley. Audiences were sensitive to minor defects and oddities in the AI news anchors, and felt eerie while watching them. Findings of this study can be used to formulate guidelines for the design of the appearance and behavior of not only AI news anchors but all humanoid AI characters.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. (62272500, 61772564), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation under Grant No. 2021A1515011990, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Big Data Analysis and Simulation of Public Opinion under Grant No. 2017B030301003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Journalism and Communication, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Huiyue Wu, Zhanming Chen & Yifan Huang

  2. Guangdong Key Laboratory for Big Data Analysis and Simulation of Public Opinion, Guangzhou, China

    Huiyue Wu

  3. The Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

    Huawei Tu

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Wu, H., Chen, Z., Huang, Y. et al. Research on the uncanny valley effect in artificial intelligence news anchors. Multimed Tools Appl 83, 62581–62606 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-18073-z

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