Which would tie in with people finding Robot #4 (the least humanlike) the most appealing. Do you think the Uncanny Valley is surpassable? I've been seeing a lot of extremely humanlike characters in video games recently. It seems some game developers are either actively ignoring Sherry Turkle et. al. or banking on them being wrong. (I'm creeped out even by Pixar children, so I'm probably not the best person to judge such things)
Burleigh & Schoenhurr made the argument that the Uncanny Valley drives a lot of the social stigma experienced by transgender individuals. Drag queens do okay. People who pass do okay. Individuals who aren't quite adopted to performing their chosen (rather than born) gender raise disquiet that may not be conscious because of the Uncanny Valley. They weren't the first ones to make the observation, either. I remember seeing percolations of it going back ten years or more. So yes - the Uncanny Valley is surpassable. Transgender individuals do it all the time. I'd argue that Avatar made it to the other side. I agree with you, though - we watched like 40 E3 videos last night and it was Uncanny Valley On Parade. I'm no programmer but if I had to guess, I'd guess that they're all using the same plugins, and those plugins haven't made it to the other side yet.
Can we apply the term "Uncanny Valley" to audio as well? i.e. Those creepy "player voices" in E3 demonstrations (Ubisoft, I'm looking at you)