Computers May Be As Good As (Or Better Than) Human Biocurators

This author seems to have inappropriately compared the "fear" of machines doing better than humans with concept of uncanny valley.

The concept of the "uncanny valley" is that the affinity of humans for observing the appearance or behavior of a human-like entity (robot, alien, whatever) has this unexpected dip when it is too close to the human behavior (we have this apparent built-in viceral problem with the entity). However, this is only true when it is trying to mimic human-like behaviors. If it's doing something totally different or totally exceeding human behaviors (say distinctly non-human speed, accuracy, strength, appearance, etc), the uncanny valley doesn't say anything about affinity, in fact, if you were to extrapolate the curve out, humans might even have more affinity for these "super-human" behaviors. Maybe that's why many express affinity for live-action versions of comic book super-heros, or airbrushed models in magazines. The behavior is so far from the uncanny valley that it doesn't invoke the supression response that is responsible for it.

Just like what was once observed with "space-shuttle" pilots, the computers can probably do a better job at this task, but we don't quite trust them yet (for some reason). That's really just the human fear of being replaced by machines, not uncanny valley. Note that the only people fearful about this behavior are the people that are likely to be replaced (and maybe a few that sympathize with them)...

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