#436 EMOTIONAL ROBOTS By midcentury, the era of emotional robots may be in full flower. In the past, writers have fantasized about robots that yearn to become human and have emotions. In Pinocchio, a wooden puppet wished to become a real boy. In the Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man wished for a heart. And in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data the android tried to master emotions by telling jokes and figuring out what makes us laugh. In fact, in science fiction, it is a recurring theme that although robots may become increasingly intelligent, the essence of emotions will always elude them. Robots may one day become smarter than us, some science fiction writers declare, but they won’t be able to cry. Actually, that may not be true. Scientists are now understanding the true nature of emotions. First, emotions tell us what is good for us and what is harmful. The vast majority of things in the world are either harmful or not very useful. When we experience the emotion of “like,” we are learning to identify the tiny fraction of things in the environment that are beneficial to us. In fact, each of our emotions (hate, jealousy, fear, love, etc.) evolved over millions of years to protect us from the dangers of a hostile world and help us to reproduce. Every emotion helps to propagate our genes into the next generation. The critical role of emotions in our evolution was apparent to neurologist Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California, who analyzed victims of brain injuries or disease. In some of these patients, the link between the thinking part of their brains (the cerebral cortex) and the emotional center (located deep in the center of the brain, like the amygdala) was cut. These people were perfectly normal, except they had difficulty expressing emotions. One problem became immediately obvious: they could not make choices. Shopping was a nightmare, since everything had the same value to them, whether it was expensive or cheap, garish or sophisticated. Setting an appointment was almost impossible, since all dates in the future were the same. They seem “to know, but not to feel,” he said. In other words, one of the chief purposes of emotions is to give us values, so we can decide what is important, what is expensive, what is pretty, and what is precious. Without emotions, everything has the same value, and we become paralyzed by endless decisions, all of which have the same weight. So scientists are now beginning to understand that emotions, far from being a luxury, are essential to intelligence. For example, when one watches Star Trek and sees Spock and Data performing their jobs supposedly without any emotions, you now realize the flaw immediately. At every turn, Spock and Data have exhibited emotions: they have made a long series of value judgments. They decided that being an officer is important, that it is crucial to perform certain tasks, that the goal of the Federation is a noble one, that human life is precious, etc. So it is an illusion that you can have an officer devoid of emotions. Emotional robots could also be a matter of life and death. In the future, scientists may be able to create rescue robots —robots that are sent into fires, earthquakes, explosions, etc. They will have to make thousands of value judgments about who and what to save and in what order. Surveying the devastation all around them, they will have to rank the various tasks they face in order of priority. Emotions are also essential if you view the evolution of the human brain. If you look at the gross anatomical features of the brain, you notice that they can be grouped into three large categories. First, you have the reptilian brain, found near the base of the skull, which makes up most of the brain of reptiles. Primitive life functions, such as balance, aggression, territoriality, searching for food, etc., are controlled by this part of the brain. (Sometimes, when staring at a snake that is staring back at you, you get a creepy sensation. You wonder, What is the snake thinking about? If this theory is correct, then the snake is not thinking much at all, except whether or not you are lunch.) When we look at higher organisms, we see that the brain has expanded toward the front of the skull. At the next level, we find the monkey brain, or the limbic system, located in the center of our brain. It includes components like the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotions. Animals that live in groups have an especially well-developed limbic system. Social animals that hunt in groups require a high degree of brainpower devoted to understanding the rules of the pack. Since success in the wilderness depends on cooperating with others, but because these animals cannot talk, it means that these animals must communicate their emotional state via body language, grunts, whines, and gestures. Finally, we have the front and outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, the layer that defines humanity and governs rational thought. While other animals are dominated by instinct and genetics, humans use the cerebral cortex to reason things out. If this evolutionary progression is correct, it means that emotions will play a vital role in creating autonomous robots. So far, robots have been created that mimic only the reptilian brain. They can walk, search their surroundings, and pick up objects, but not much more. Social animals, on the other hand, are more intelligent than those with just a reptilian brain. Emotions are required to socialize the animal and for it to master the rules of the pack. So scientists have a long way to go before they can model the limbic system and the cerebral cortex. Cynthia Breazeal of MIT actually created a robot specifically designed to tackle this problem. The robot is KISMET, with a face that resembles a mischievous elf. On the surface, it appears to be alive, responding to you with facial motions representing emotions. KISMET can duplicate a wide range of emotions by changing its facial expressions. In fact, women who react to this childlike robot often speak to KISMET in “motherese,” what mothers use when talking to babies and children. Although robots like KISMET are designed to mimic emotions, scientists have no illusion that the robot actually feels emotions. In some sense, it is like a tape recorder programmed not to make sounds, but to make facial emotions instead, with no awareness of what it is doing. But the breakthrough with KISMET is that it does not take much programming to create a robot that will mimic humanlike emotions to which humans will respond. These emotional robots will find their way into our homes. They won’t be our confidants, secretaries, or maids, but they will be able to perform rule-based procedures based on heuristics. By midcentury, they may have the intelligence of a dog or cat. Like a pet, they will exhibit an emotional bond with their master, so that they will not be easily discarded. You will not be able to speak to them in colloquial English, but they will understand programmed commands, perhaps hundreds of them. If you tell them to do something that is not already stored in their memory (such as “go fly a kite”), they will simply give you a curious, confused look. (If by midcentury robot dogs and cats can duplicate the full range of animal responses, indistinguishable from real animal behavior, then the question arises whether these robot animals feel or are as intelligent as an ordinary dog or cat.) Sony experimented with these emotional robots when it manufactured the AIBO (artificial intelligence robot) dog. It was the first toy to realistically respond emotionally to its master, albeit in a primitive way. For example, if you pet the AIBO dog on its back, it would immediately begin to murmur, uttering soothing sounds. It could walk, respond to voice commands, and even learn to a degree. AIBO cannot learn new emotions and emotional responses. (It was discontinued in 2005 due to financial reasons, but it has since created a loyal following who upgrade the computer’s software so AIBO can perform more tasks.) In the future, robotic pets that form an emotional attachment to children may become common. Although these robot pets will have a large library of emotions and will form lasting attachments with children, they will not feel actual emotions.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 09:41:51 +0000
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