A subject that I often bring up, especially when I am asked to talk about the future of video games and virtual world development, is the issue of "The Uncanny Valley". A term first coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in the 1970's that described the point that humans become repulsed by humanoid, synthetic robots. There is a point when the robots stop being cute and interesting and are just creepy, unnerving and un-setteling in their approximation of human-like qualities.

Today, we use the term when describing characters and avatars in video games, as well as the original intended use. While graphics and physics systems have become more robust and photo-realistic, we have yet to really bridge the gap from virtual avatar to human acceptance. It is this gap, or Uncanny Valley, that graphic designers, artists, programmers and physics wizards are racing to overcome. The question is, do we know enough about how we perceive the world around us, and each other, to cross that valley? I don't believe we do at this point in time. I also don't know at what point we are able to create such a convincing model that we can truly trick the brain into believing they are looking at a real human.

And this is the problem I have with "realistic" virtual worlds and virtual reality in general. In fact, I made this position quite clear at the Stanford Always On conference last year, on Jaron Lanier's panel, where he asked me, "What is this heresy you speak of?" There is a huge difference in consciously allowing your mind to suspend disbelief and give way to the experience, which it can snap out of at any given moment, and the ability to create an "artificial reality" that the human brain can't distinguish from reality.

James Portnow, a game designer, formerly of Activision, and founder and CCO at Divide by Zero Games, posted a terrific piece on www.edge-online.com on this very topic. He and Daniel Floyd have a video that explains this phenomena in a really entertaining way. Check it out!