Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

372 conclusions
to detect possible collisions and to find optimal routes to a chosen destination,
one should demand that the car does not take a perverse delight (assuming
it has emotions!) in avoiding collisions by stopping so suddenly as
to risk injury to its human occupants or in switching the destination from
that chosen by the driver to one the car prefers. If we purchase a computer
tutor, then the ability to provide the appearance of emotions useful
to the student may well be part of the specifications, as will the ability to
avoid (with the caveats mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) the temper
tantrums to which the more excitable human teacher may occasionally
succumb. In summary, machine learning must meet constraints of designed
use, while at the same time exploring novel solutions to the problem. This
does not rule out the possibility of unintended consequences, but when a
machine “goes wrong,” there should be maintenance routines to fix it that
would be very different from either the medical treatment or penal servitude
applied to humans.
Once again, let us look at the OED for definitions and recall the warning
“beware the passionate robot.” We can then consider some key questions
in our attempt to understand the nature of robot emotions, if indeed they
do or will exist.
Action: I. Generally. 1. The process or condition of acting or doing
(in the widest sense), the exertion of energy or influence; working,
agency, operation. a. Of persons. (Distinguished from passion, from
thought or contemplation, from speaking or writing.)
Active: gen. Characterized by action. Hence A. adj. 1. a. Opposed
to contemplative or speculative: Given to outward action rather than
inward contemplation or speculation. 2. Opposed to passive: Originating
or communicating action, exerting action upon others; acting
of its own accord, spontaneous.
Passion: III. 6. a. Any kind of feeling by which the mind is powerfully
affected or moved; a vehement, commanding, or overpowering
emotion; . . . as ambition, avarice, desire, hope, fear, love, hatred,
joy, grief, anger, revenge. 7. a. spec. An outburst of anger or bad
temper. 8. a. Amorous feeling; strong sexual affection; love.
Passive: A. adj. 2. a. Suffering action from without; that is the object,
as distinguished from the subject, of action; acted upon, affected,
or swayed by external force; produced or brought about by
external agency.
I included these definitions because I find it instructive to consider that
in everyday parlance we lose active control of our selves when we are in the