Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

x preface
prefer to read Part III before Part II, to gain some sense of the state of play
in “emotional AI” first and then use it to probe the biological database that
Part II provides.)
Michael A. Arbib warns us to “Beware the Passionate Robot,” noting that
almost all of the book stresses the positive contribution of emotions, whereas
personal experience shows that emotions “can get the better of one.” He then
enriches the discussion of the evolution of emotions by drawing comparisons
with the evolution of vision and the evolution of language before returning
to the issue of whether and how to characterize emotions in such a
way that one might say a robot has emotions even though they are not
empathically linked to human emotions. Finally, he reexamines the role of
mirror neurons in Jeannerod’s account of emotion, agency, and social coordination
by suggesting parallels between their role in the evolution of language
and ideas about the evolution of consciousness, feelings, and empathy.
In these ways, the book brings together the state of the art of research
on the neuroscience and AI approaches to emotion in an effort to understand
why humans and other animals have emotion and the various ways
that emotion may factor into robotics and cognitive architectures of the
future. The contributors to this book have their own answers to the question
“Who needs emotions?” It is our hope that through an appreciation of
these different views, readers will gain their own comprehensive understanding
of why humans have emotion and the extent to which robots should and
will have them.
Jean-Marc Fellous
La Jolla, CA
Michael A. Arbib
La Jolla and Los Angeles, CA