• Question: when do you think we will create an ai capeable of emotions

    Asked by mikecartoon to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      A robot that shows human emotion has already been created! Check it out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/09/nao-robot-develop-display-emotions

      “When Nao is sad, he hunches his shoulders forward and looks down. When he’s happy, he raises his arms, angling for a hug. When frightened, Nao cowers, and he stays like that until he is soothed with some gentle strokes on his head.

      Nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps, except that Nao is a robot — the world’s first that can develop and display emotions. He can form bonds with the people he meets depending on how he is treated. The more he interacts with someone, the more Nao learns a person’s moods and the stronger the bonds become.”

      Amazing! I don’t think we’ll ever be able to produce an AI that is truly human though. Have you seen the film, AI?

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      That’s a philosophical questions, because first we have to define emotions and how they manifest. Nao mimics human emotional behavior, but does it really feel that way? How can you tell it really feels that way? I think to be capable of emotions someone/something has to be self-aware, and I find the idea of machines that are self-aware scary. Imagine if they develop a will of their own pursuing their own agenda. But then, how do we know we are self-aware? And how can we explain that we are, how does our brain allow us to be self-aware? Or is there a soul? … I think all this goes way beyond ecology 🙂

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      It is a very interesting question but as Nicolas points out – what do we mean by emotion.

      Some emotions are considered as ‘learned responses’ – in which case a machine could do this as well as a human or animal: http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch05_conditioning/conditional_emotional_responses.html

      However, it does seem somewhat unsatisfying to think that all the different things we feel and think are automatic responses – this doesn’t seem right to me, there must be more to it than that!

      Computer technology is advancing rapidly though and we already have computers that can teach themselves and learn. We even get them to learn how to move around our houses and gardens to clean our floors or mow our lawns:
      http://www.irobot.com/uk/Robot+Hoover
      http://www.mowbot.co.uk/

      Perhaps computers will teach themselves to have emotional responses? What do you think?

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