What are ‘Emotions’?
An emotion can be seen as a state of our nervous system that changes or appears as a response to the stimuli around us, like thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.
“Emotions are just cognitions” – Socrates.
Computers and Emotions
Coming out of human philosophy and jumping into a little bit of computing philosophy…
Emotions can be seen as collective integrated information; at the same time, it can also be seen as a discrete form of data. They are the response to the specific stimuli, For example, Hurting can be characterised as Physical and Psychological.
If hurt physically, touch sensors can be triggered to run appropriate code to respond to the action, such as, if ‘pinched’, response of ‘agony’ can be invoked. In humans, pain receptors or Nociceptors are the ones responsible for perceiving pain by sending signals to our brain. Similarly, artificial skin uses artificial tactile sensors that are capable of registering the sense of touch, its location and its intensity.
Also, if hurt non-physically, such as verbal interactions, provoking or harsh words, sentences can be scanned as input comes to audio senses. Natural Language Processing can be utilised to analyse the sentences to train the ANN for initiating specific responses for particular words and their synonyms. For example, words like ‘hate’, ‘love’, ‘dislike’, etc can be fed to the repository and linked with different combinations of inputs to respond to specific scenario invoking appropriate code, such as sentences like “I hate you”may instil anger, sadness, etc. in the host.
Possibilities
Though it may look or sound easy however it’s not a straight road to achieving this. Many researchers and scientists know and believe this, some also do not suggest this. Linking different technologies may look a little bit tough today but in the near future it may become possible to cut the barriers down and link different technologies to achieve a single distant goal.
In the view of recent technology demonstrated by Pranav Mistry, 38-year-old tech industry veteran, his the latest brainchild created at the STAR Labs owned by Samsung, “NEON”. They are the computationally created virtual beings that look and behave like a human being with the ability to show emotions and intelligence. They can interact with people in real-time. Powered by the extremely powerful CORE R3, it is a digital avatar that’s meant to mimic real human appearance and emotions capable of remembering and learning. Hence, it’s not hard to believe that humanoid having human or close to human-like properties are not far away.
Also coming back to the question at hand, YES, Computers can demonstrate human-like emotions and may be able to act on them in the near future.
Computer Emotions and Games
So, how is the topic ‘Can computers have emotions?’ connected to games?…
There are several games and applications that have been developed to simulate emotions in artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These games and applications can be used for research and experimentation in the field of AI and emotions, as well as for entertainment and educational purposes.
Emotion Detection Games:
These games are designed to test the ability of AI systems to recognize and respond to different emotions in human players.
Emotion Expression Games:
These games are designed to test the ability of AI systems to express emotions and to interact with human players in an emotionally appropriate manner.
Emotion-based Game AI:
These games use AI to control the emotional state of non-player characters or the game’s environment, changing the difficulty and the gameplay experience based on the player’s emotions.
Emotion-based Tutoring Systems:
These systems use AI to detect and respond to the emotional state of the student and adjust the teaching approach accordingly.
Emotion-based Virtual Assistants:
These systems use AI to understand and respond to the emotional state of the user and provide more personalised and appropriate responses.
These games and applications can be used to study and improve the ability of AI systems to understand and respond to human emotions, and could potentially have a wide range of applications in fields such as healthcare, education, and customer service.
Consequences
Now the most heated question arises, “How far is it viable to give a machine the powers of a human, and even if done, will it come out in our favour or be a doom for us”. We can argue endlessly on this to arrive at a conclusion which may not satisfy either ends until we see the results with our own eyes.
But that doesn’t mean we need to do it or does it mean it’s exactly why we need to do it!.
If computers were able to truly experience emotions, it could have several consequences. Some potential consequences include:
Difficulty in understanding and predicting their behaviour:
Since emotions can be complex and unpredictable, it could be difficult for humans to understand and predict the behaviour of computers that have emotions.
Ethical concerns:
If computers have emotions, it could raise ethical concerns about how they should be treated and what rights they should have.
Impact on human-computer interaction:
Emotions could potentially improve the way humans interact with computers by making them more relatable and easier to communicate with.
New kind of AI safety concerns:
Emotionally aware AI would have different safety concerns, such as avoiding emotional manipulation and not causing emotional harm to people.
Conclusion
Emotionally aware AI could be more sophisticated and realistic in decision making, as they would take into account the emotional aspect of a situation.
It is important to note that while some researchers working on AI and machine learning are trying to give computers the ability to understand and simulate emotions, much work still needs to be done in order to see this becoming reality.
AI emotion games can have potential benefits for the future, as they can help researchers and developers to improve the ability of AI systems to understand and respond to human emotions. This can lead to the development of more sophisticated and realistic AI systems that can better interact with and serve human needs.
Prof. Stephen Hawking’s exact words were “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”. But we humans are the race known for their curiosity and the thirst for exploration. So, whether it’ll spell doom or create an extraordinary future remains an unanswered question for the future researchers.