The 'Uncanny Valley' and the Verisimilitude of Sexual Offenders — Part I: An 'Ethorobotics' Approach

This article is the first in a trilogy of articles that addresses the issue of the constitutionality of sexual offender civil commitment programs, such as those currently being litigated in states like Minnesota and Missouri, where, for nearly twenty years, the states civilly committed more than 1,500 sexual offenders without having fully released a single program participant. In this article, the author proposes that a novel cognitive phenomenon known as the "Uncanny Valley" effect may explain the failure of civil commitment programs to successfully reintegrate qualified offenders into the community. Hypothesized in 1970 by the Japanese roboticist, Masahito Mori, the “uncanny valley” identifies a paradoxical phenomenon that occurs to one’s affinity for nonhuman stimuli representing progressively human-like qualities. Within the context of robotics design, Mori proposed that as nonhuman stimuli progress in human-likeness, a subject's affinity for the stimuli increases, until the point at which the nonhuman stimuli become almost indistinguishable from real humans, at which point the subject experiences a sense of eeriness and repulsion, and relegates the stimuli into the "uncanny valley." In this article, the author discusses numerous studies analyzing the uncanny valley effect in the areas of robotics design, human robot interactions, and several other contexts in which social scientists have discovered the existence of the uncanny valley, such as studies involving the treatment of child autism, the adoption of culturally relevant educational pedagogy, architectural theory, and the use of lethal autonomous weapons. The author then proposes that the uncanny valley effect exists in the context of civilly committed sexual offenders, whereby, the public perceives sexual offenders as inhuman monsters that must be removed from society. When a sexual offender is incarcerated and subsequently civilly committed, the public's affinity for the inhuman offender increases in proportion to the offender's participation in treatment. The subject's affinity for the offender peaks as the offender progresses to become more like a fully-healthy human, but nevertheless remains confined, thereby posing no risk to the public and invoking no fear. However, as offenders qualify for release and posture to reintegrate into the community, presenting as indistinguishable from fully healthy humans, the public is repulsed and relegates the offender into the uncanny valley of indeterminate confinement. The author asserts that the uncanny valley phenomenon in the context of sexual offenders parallels the existence of the phenomenon in robotics design and human-robot interactions and urges social scientists to study the existence of the uncanny valley in this context. However, the author also recognizes the limitations of Mori's hypothesis as applied to the unique context of sexual offenders. The author concludes that for sexual offenders to avoid Mori's inevitable uncanny valley, society must adopt an "ethorobotic" perspective of sexual offenders. An "ethorobotic" perspective categorizes stimuli not according to physical human-likeness but, rather, according to optimized functionality within a defined social niche. Using both socially acceptable and unacceptable unique examples, such as the use of computer-animated virtual avatars in online child pornography investigations and the prohibition of the commercial sale of child sex robots, the author demonstrates how an ethorobotic extension of Mori's hypothesis allows the stimulus agent to successfully integrate into the human environment according to its designed functionality and to circumvent the uncanny valley without violating the behavioral norms of the ethological niche within which the agent must function. The author then applies an ethorobotic extension of Mori's hypothesis to the context of sexual offenders, concluding that, if sexual offenders are to avoid the uncanny valley, society must adopt an ethorobotic perspective of sexual offenders. In a forthcoming article: "The Uncanny Valley and the Verisimilitude of Sexual Offenders — Part II: Perception Versus Reality," the author will explain how an ethological extension of Mori's hypothesis may apply to the verisimilitude of sexual offenders and may reconcile the uncanny distinction between the perception and reality of sexual offenders that is created by the media and encouraged by policy-makers. In the forthcoming third article of the trilogy: "The Uncanny Valley and the Verisimilitude of Sexual Offenders — Part III: Bridging the Uncanny Valley," the author will demonstrate how — or whether — such an ethological approach to sexual offenders may be implemented so as to bridge the uncanny valley constitutionally.