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Why do people like machines that pretend to be human?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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My assumption for why people prefer it is because its more intuitive. You just ask the computer. Its like asking someone on the street. You can use sentences and descriptive language and you'll get an answer that basically walks you through the steps as if it was a person explaining it to you.
You're describing the uncanny valley where if something looks and behaves human, but isnt, you get the creeps. Its fun to freak yourself out by thinking "why are we so fundamentally afraid of something that looks like us but isnt? What could there have been?"
I’ve heard the explanation being that it’s a defense against treating dead bodies as alive and spending resources on them at a primal level. Just imagining when we first developed empathy and tried at length to care for those who we lost and evolution needed us to focus on the live ones.