Design of Artificial Intelligence and robotics habitually assumes that adding
more humanlike features improves the user experience, mainly kept in check by
suspicion of uncanny effects. Three strands of theorizing are brought together
for the first time and empirically put to the test: Media Equation (and in its
wake, Computers Are Social Actors), Uncanny Valley theory, and as an extreme of
human-likeness assumptions, the Singularity. We measured the user experience of
real-life visitors of a number of seminars who were checked in either by Smart
Dynamics' Iwaa, Hanson's Sophia robot, Sophia's on-screen avatar, or a human
assistant. Results showed that human-likeness was not in appearance or behavior
but in attributed qualities of being alive. Media Equation, Singularity, and
Uncanny hypotheses were not confirmed. We discuss the imprecision in theorizing
about human-likeness and rather opt for machines that 'function adequately.