<div>The growth of Artificial intelligence has been under the
spotlight of technology throughout the past decade, and emotional AI may be the
very pinnacle of science or the human's aspiration to understand and
reconstruct nature and, finally, himself. This scientific inclination is most
transparent in the post-human rise of humanoid robots. <o:p></o:p>

The enthusiasm inwrought in the study and the development of
AI resulted in rapid progress that can be felt in the average daily life today
worldwide in the form of smartphones, navigation, all the way to online
banking. The technology in our hands is changing and evolving every year.<o:p></o:p>

Still, even though Artificial Intelligence is growing and
improving (mainly through the machine learning processes), the gem that is
still unattainable to the AI capacities are emotions and emotional
intelligence.<o:p></o:p>

Can Machines Develop Emotions?<o:p></o:p>

Many argue that machines can't develop human-like emotions,
even though there are human activities in which a human can nevermore beat even
a basic computer, like calculation for instance.<o:p></o:p>

The fact is that machines are master calculators because the
calculation is based on a system. On the other hand, emotions can’t be
translated or fit into any precise system. Even though emotional expressions
and gestures can be observed and classified, these kinds of scientific methods can’t get the hang of something as spiritual as emotions.<o:p></o:p>

The important factor that plays a role in the odds for AI to
evolve into real ‘EI’ is the fact that grasping emotions and the way they work
is so complex it remains a challenge even for the competence of our own
language.<o:p></o:p>

At the end of the day, robots are still complex machines
that come down to operating by programming languages built on binary code.<o:p></o:p>

Ethical Problems<o:p></o:p>

AI is a controversial subject on its own, but if AI becomes
empowered with emotional intelligence, the complexity of the problem deepens as
AI becomes more powerful and possibly more out of control.<o:p></o:p>

Some of the potential suspicions include privacy issues,
loss of work in certain areas, even more, widespread surveillance, security
issues, "AI awakening" (meaning that the intelligence could become so
autonomous that we can't control it anymore), etc. Many studies address
possible troubles regarding Virtual personal assistants (VPA), like Alexa and
Google Assistant, especially the ones regarding privacy.<o:p></o:p>

However, the emotional development of AI could have some
benefits as well, such as in medicine, education, mental health, etc. For
instance, emotional AI referred to as ‘Empathic AI mirrors’ in the form of robotic
playmates, showed positive results with children with autism.<o:p></o:p>

Artificial Emotional Intelligence: AI And Autism<o:p></o:p>

Uses of emotional AI<o:p></o:p>

With the flourishment of empathy in AI, many industries and
fields of life would reap the benefits, from the gaming and car industries to
healthcare, and retail, and it would even improve cooking. Presumably, the
prognosis of advanced emotional AI promises empathic fridges that are able to
recognize your mood and suggest appropriate food.<o:p></o:p>

One of the major benefits it would bring to healthcare is
monitoring patients at all times and therefore avoiding any oversights. Some
games could detect the recipient’s reactions and adjust the game mode and
difficulty according to them. Facial recognition and emotion detection are
already being applied by the apps such as Instagram.<o:p></o:p>

Pro et contra<o:p></o:p>

Machines learn from us, but this time maybe we can learn
something from machines. If experiencing love, anger or jealousy is the biggest
challenge for them, could we presume that those are the very things that
significantly define us as human beings? If the answer is yes, maybe we should
take our emotional lives far more seriously and nurture them more, instead of
attempting to create artificially emotional beings when we don’t understand our
own emotionality.<o:p></o:p>

On the other hand, maybe we will discover new knowledge
about the nature of our own emotions through striving to create an artificial
one. Opinions regarding AI are divided, not only among the laics, but within
the scientific circles as well, but the discussion is intensifying furthermore
when we add emotional intelligence to the picture, especially because of the
ethical problems.<o:p></o:p>

Lovotics<o:p></o:p>

A CBC article titled ‘Can a robot love you back?’ introduces
a robot called lovotics (which is a coinage of love and robotics), a robot
whose aim is not completing some trivial assignments, but to practice the very
crown of emotions - love.<o:p></o:p>

Dr. Samani, the director of AI technology in Taiwan, even
studies reciprocal love between humans and robots. These love-oriented robots
look more like toys than advanced machines, but, in love, it’s always more
important what’s on the inside. In this case, it’s a sophisticated endocrine
system that navigates digital hormones based on interactions with humans.<o:p></o:p>

Samani himself says that ‘a robot is a piece of machine’ and
that it is actually not capable of ‘experiencing’ love, but what it does is
more of a simulation of love or affection. Therefore, the robot remains within
the limits of completing a function. It is more than questionable whether if we
could use the word love to describe this machine programmed to give off an
illusion of affection, at best.<o:p></o:p>

Conclusion<o:p></o:p>

It seems that we eagerly embraced the not so long ago
future-like technologies entering our everyday lives in the forms of phones,
unnecessarily diverse home devices, etc. But the truth is that maybe the world
has immersed far too easily into creating new forms of consciousness and
interacting with them. Additionally, bear in mind that all those mass-produced
trivial devices are made of plastic that is one of the most urgent
environmental threats today.<o:p></o:p>

As we just might be witnessing the very pinnacle of this
technological evolution, maybe it is the perfect time to consider all the pros
and cons, as well as all the potential repercussions of this ground-breaking,
but also possibly vain and dangerous invention, regardless of whether if robots
are our friends or our enemies.<o:p></o:p>

Erich Fromm, an expert on human nature and the nature of
emotions said: The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of
the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel.<o:p></o:p></div>

Angela Stojkovic

Premium reporting on technology, startups, VC funding, and software from Techfastly tagged with AI. Read about themes, trends and strategies for AI.

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