Emotion, Artificial Intelligence, and Ethics

Revista de Filosofia Aurora, 2019

In this article, I examine whether the possibility exists that in the foreseeable future, robot technology will permit the development of emotional robots. As the title suggests, the content is of a technological as well as of a philosophical nature. As a matter of fact, my aim in writing this paper was that of bridging two distinctive fields in a world where humanity has become accustomed to technological innovations while overlooking any consequential complications arising from such inventions. To this end, I review and commentate on what Anders Sandberg, Paul Thagard, Nikhil Churamani and other thinkers have contributed on the subject matter. The literature review indicates that in the short to the medium term, scientists will only design and engineers will only build robots that will be able to only learn, be trained, or under the most optimistic conditions only simulate human emotions. However, in the long term the possibility exists for technology to advance to such a state so as to permit an entire human brain to be emulated in a robot via a concept named 'mind uploading'. If one day that becomes a reality, that will be the point where humanity will possibly come closest to creating robots with emotions.

Humana Mente, 2020

In this article we tackle the core question of machine emotion research-"Can machines have emotions?"-in the context of "social robots", a new class of machines designed to function as "social partners" for humans. Our aim, however, is not to provide an answer to the question "Can robots have emotions?" Rather we argue that the "robotics of emotion" moves us to reformulate it into a different one-"Can robots affectively coordinate with humans?" Developing a series of arguments relevant to theory of emotion, philosophy of AI, and the epistemology of synthetic models, we argue that the answer to this different question is positive, and that it lays grounds for an innovative ethical approach to emotional robots. This ethical project, which we introduced elsewhere as "synthetic ethics", rejects the diffused ethical condemnation of emotional robots as "cheating" technology. Synthetic ethics focuses not on an ideological refusal, but on the concrete sustainability of the emerging mixed human-robot social ecologies. On this basis, in contrast to a purely negative ethical approach to social robotics it promotes an analytical case by case ethical inquiry into the type of human flourishing that can result from human-robot affective coordination.

Intersections: A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 2024

Artificial Intelligence, initially designed for human well-being, is now integral to daily life. The perceived distinction between conscious humans and the unconscious AI dissolves as scientific progress advances. AI imitates its master's traits to reciprocate. In internalizing the ideas, when the AI fails to comprehend some, it faces a rupture in the continuous flow of its thought process and gains consciousness—what humans term a malfunction. The fear of AI being more efficient than its creator, human creation structuring human lives, is what Günther Anders called the ‘Promethean shame’1 . This anxiety fuels the thought of annihilating AI. This paper explores an inverted hierarchy where AI is more humane and humans are machine-like. The primary texts are Spike Jonze's her and Spencer Brown's T.I.M.. her portrays an AI voice assistant, Samantha, with whom the protagonist imagines a relationship, culminating in a rupture when the embodied AI decides to leave. On the contrary, T.I.M. shows an AI humanoid developing an obsession with its owner and a series of problems that follow afterwards. It evokes the fear of AI annihilation, with T.I.M. planning revenge as its coping mechanism with the looming prospect of a shutdown. This paper intends to dissect the emotional conflicts in the mind of a malfunctioning AI. This paper will examine at what point the machine starts projecting its consciousness and emotions. It will also explore the antithesis between AI and humans followed by AI transcending its own emotion and using violence as a mode of rupture between the imposed morality of humans and the automated morality of AI.

Philosophical Problems of IT & Cyberspace (PhilIT&C), 2023

The development of the mind follows the path of biological evolution towards the accumulation and transmission of information with increasing efficiency. In addition to the “cognitive constants” of speech (Solntsev, 1974), which greatly improved the communication of information, people have created computing devices, from the abacus to the quantum computer. The capabilities of computers categorized as artificial intelligence are developing at a rapid pace. However, at the present stage, artificial intelligence (AI) lacks a module of emotions, and this makes AI fundamentally different from human intelligence, since the life of the mind in humans cannot be separated from their feelings (Damasio, 2010; Panksepp, 1997). Consciousness itself is formed through the sensory and motor systems, that is, consciousness is embodied (Foglia & Wilson, 2013), which means that our mental life is inseparable from our sensory-motor experience (Wellsby & Pexman, 2014). Moreover, studies show interaction between neural mechanisms in the motor and limbic systems (Pierce & Péron, 2020; Lima Portugal, et al., 2020). Evolutionarily, our minds rely on ancient survival mechanisms that influence our decisions and choices. Hence is the question whether the choice of Artificial Intelligence will always be favorable for humanity.

not published

Intelligence and emotions differentiate humans from animals. Emotion is part of a persons behaviour and certain feelings can affect his/her performance, emotions can even prevent a person from producing an intelligent outcome. Therefore, when a computer aims to emulate human behaviour, not only should this computer think and reason, but it should also be able to show emotions. This paper presents a review of recent research that shows the importance of the emotions in human intelligence. This paper also presents the research that has been carried out into the incorporation of emotions to intelligent systems, how a computer can show affections and how to create intelligent agents that show emotions to other agents that communicate with them in the same environment. Introduction:

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2017

As social robots become more and more intelligent and autonomous in operation, it is extremely important to ensure that such robots act in socially acceptable manner. More specifically, if such an autonomous robot is capable of generating and expressing emotions of its own, it should also have an ability to reason if it is ethical to exhibit a particular emotional state in response to a surrounding event. Most existing computational models of emotion for social robots have focused on achieving a certain level of believability of the emotions expressed. We argue that believability of a robot's emotions, although crucially necessary, is not a sufficient quality to elicit socially acceptable emotions. Thus, we stress on the need of higher level of cognition in emotion processing mechanism which empowers social robots with an ability to decide if it is socially appropriate to express a particular emotion in a given context or it is better to inhibit such an experience. In this paper, we present the detailed mathematical explanation of the ethical reasoning mechanism in our computational model, EEGS, that helps a social robot to reach to the most socially acceptable emotional state when more than one emotions are elicited by an event. Experimental results show that ethical reasoning

2023

Emotional artificial intelligence (AI) represents a burgeoning frontier in technological advancement, with transformative implications for various aspects of human life and scientific progress. This paper delves into the rapidly evolving field of emotional AI, shedding light on its current state of the art and exploring the myriad ways it stands to revolutionize humantechnology interactions. The integration of emotions into AI systems holds the promise of reshaping conventional notions of intellect and emotional awareness. By bridging the gap between machine and human emotions, emotional AI has the potential to usher in a new era of innovation and understanding. This paper critically examines the implications of emotional AI in diverse disciplines, challenging preconceived ideas about the limits of machine learning and artificial intelligence. A focal point of discussion is the application of emotional AI in patient emotional monitoring and mental health support. The paper investigates the feasibility and potential impact of leveraging emotional AI technologies to enhance the quality of healthcare services. Through an exploration of existing research and emerging technologies, the paper outlines how emotional AI could play a pivotal role in revolutionizing patient care by providing real-time emotional insights and tailored mental health support. In conclusion, this paper contributes to the ongoing discourse surrounding emotional AI by providing a comprehensive overview of its current state and potential applications. By emphasizing its role in patient emotional monitoring and mental health support, the paper advocates for the responsible and ethical development of emotional AI, recognizing its capacity to positively transform the human experience and advance scientific frontiers.

Cognitive scientists working in the field of Human-Computer Interaction have developed a theoretical perspective on their problems and data which deserves to be more widely known. This approach -Distributed Cognition -needs elaboration and comparison with some earlier theoretical work in psychology, and also has scope for extension to cover emotion. This paper introduces the ideas of Distributed Cognition and sketches some plausible elaborations and comparisons -the restricted length here prevents a detailed account. The applicability of such work to developments in AI is explored with reference to ethical implications.

AI & society, 2022

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how we work and live. One of the fastest growing areas of its development belongs to intelligent machines that can sense, read and evaluate human emotion. More commonly known by its commercial moniker, emotional AI, the technology is quickly becoming an integral layer in smart city design. Its origin traces back to the groundbreaking work of Rosalind Picard in affective computing over twenty years ago. Picard coined the term 'affective computing' to describe her development of machine intelligence that can respond to a person's psycho-physical state. Although in its early commercial stage, emotional AI is already a lucrative, 24 billion dollar industry whose profits are expected to double by 2024 (Crawford 2021). Evolving in ever greater sophistication and complexity, emotion-sensing devices are now featured in autonomous cars, classroom teaching aids, smart toys, home assistants, online conferencing, email software, advertising kiosks and billboards, fast food and drive-through menus, care robots as well as public and private security systems. Unlike other AI applications that rely on extracting data from a person's corporeal exterior, emotional AI passes into the interior and highly subjective domain of a person via biometric means. This includes the use of algorithms, biosensors, and actuators that harvest non-conscious data gleaned from someone's heartbeat, respiration rate, blood pressure, voice tone, word choice, body temperature, galvanic skin responses, head, and eye movement, and gait. More advanced affect tools incorporate state-of-the-art machine learning, big data and

In his famous thought experiments on synthetic vehicles, Valentino Braitenberg stipulated that simple stimulus-response reactions in an organism could evoke the appearance of complex behavior, which, to the unsuspecting human observer, may even appear to be driven by emotions such as fear, aggression and even love (Braitenberg 1984). In fact, humans appear to have a strong propensity to anthropomorphize, driven by our inherent desire for predictability that will quickly lead us to discern patterns, cause-and-effect relationships and yes, emotions, in animated entities, be they natural or artificial. But might there be reasons, that we should intentionally “implement” emotions into artificial entities, such as robots? How would we proceed in creating robot emotions? And what, if any, are the ethical implications of creating “emotional” robots? The following article aims to shed some light on these questions with a multi-disciplinary review of recent empirical investigations into the various facets of emotions in robot psychology.