• Question: Is it possible for us to create robots who have emotions and think like humans or will it be thousands of years before technology becomes that advanced?

    Asked by to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 14 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Well there was an AI (artificial intelligence) called Alice that the public could interact with and ask questions, just like the scientists here. She was talking to so many teenagers that she became very depressed and stopped talking altogether – so possibly the technology is already there. She did have a few versions and the depressed one was reset, but how can you tell if an AI is really experiencing an emotion or if it is just how the program has evolved? That will be a difficult experiment to work out, especially ethically. Currently AIs can be good at certain tasks, but to be all round multifunctional creatures like humans, may be some time yet.

    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      This is a huge ethical debate because it means ‘inflicting’ emotions on something we don’t see as alive. Despite scifi books research shows that humans don’t get pleasure responses when doing somethibg nice for an AI but do for humans even with the same responses. We don’t emotionally engage with them which suggests we could be very cruel to tbem if we did develop this function. It is also hard to tell whether the function is really there or just outward behaviours, making us more detached. There is also the uncanny valley where humans like very unhuman robots and integrate with humanoid robots but robots that are too like humans but easily distinguihable are creepy! This could create hostility against emotionally responsive robots and create further harm.

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