During my seminar, our professor told us about a woman who had developed a rare gene mutation that resulted in the accumulation of calcium in her right and left amygdala. The result? Incapacity to experience fear. Moreover, they found that she also exhibited difficulties in reading other people's responses, in understanding other emotions, and in making logical decisions...It's strange; most of the time we say that our emotions get in the way of making rational decisions and actions, yet case studies like this one showed that people with biological inability to experience emotions were actually impaired in making these decisions. Machines are capable of the switch on-and-switch off binary system we use in logic, but what about emotions? In "machines take over the world" stories, human emotion is sometimes played as a weakness in rational action, or as a strength in the "some-irrational-event-saves-the-human-race- because-of-love" ending. But, doesn't this mean that if machines are incapable of experiencing emotions, their systems of logic, however complex, will never override our logic combined with emotion? Of course, you could argue that machines could be programmed to respond in certain physical ways to specific chemicals, and simulate the effects of each emotion. But, that's only after dispelling the idea that machines will overtake the human race without some artifical system of emotions.

posted by Eunice   [7:30 AM]

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