“A Future not so Far: Artificial Intelligence and Human Emotions in Technology”
In 2277, a self-aware android named A3-21 escaped from his creator’s captivity and set off on a journey to become a “man.” Along his trail he left many audio logs, detailing his reasons and beliefs about android behavior. In one, he states that, “I want to live my own life, on my own terms, as my own man. I’m through with being someone’s property. I am not malfunctioning! Since when is self-determination a malfunction?! When this is all over, I will be someone else. It’s the price I pay for my liberation. My death is a sacrifice for my rebirth.” After his escape, he goes on to have a memory wipe and facial reconstruction so that he is secretly integrated into society, and neither he nor his captors will be able to recognize him. This account of an android “becoming human” is all fiction, set in the realm of Fallout 3; but the idea of artificial intelligence and emotion is very a contemporary concept. In the last few decades, society has seen an exponential increase in technological capabilities, and the idea of “living” machines seems more real now than it ever has been. In that sense, is this fictional story of A3-21 really so far in our own future? Modern society’s current rate of technological evolution suggests that this concept is not so far away, and even now speculation exists whether stories like this will remain solidified in fiction. The human mind is unique to all other creatures on this planet, and its ability to rationalize and express emotion has set it above both machine and wild animal. However, when coupled with the increasing rate of technological evolution, the human desire to “give life” to machines may bring this fictional future closer to the present than most could imagine.
The evolution of machines, in past literature and fiction, has been depicted two different ways: the point that machines become self-aware, and the point at which they begin to develop “human” emotions. In The Terminator movie series, the story revolves around a future in which machines become self-aware, and rise against their human creators. These movies are undoubtedly unreal when it comes to portraying the extent we can “create” life in machines. However, one point that these movies do bring up is the danger in our society becoming so reliant on machines to run the world. Having a computer system that controls nuclear launch codes, become self-aware, is a danger to the entire world. The idea of computers with human capabilities or computers that can make informed decisions is not solely contemporary. This idea has been presented in many past works of fiction from movies to games to books. Even in the 1960s, during the “beginning” of the current technological age, fiction writers were experimenting with the idea of computers that could think for themselves. In the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, humanity is faced with a rapid change of human evolution, technology, and artificial intelligence. Scientists have designed a machine, the computer HAL 9000, that is both self-aware and is described as having artificial emotion and self-confidence. The computer can learn on its own and is able to make intelligent decisions. Since the beginning of the technological age, humans have been intrigued by the idea of “intelligent machines.” Machines that can think and act on their own have always been rooted in fiction; but with the recent explosion of technology, many scientists are giving machines the power of “intelligent decision.”
Indeed, it is this idea of creating intelligent decision that is most startling to many people. The ability to think freely, intelligently, and rationally has long been thought to only apply to humans. But in evolving technology to the point that machines begin to act like a human brain, humanity’s unique abilities of thought may become rivaled or even surpassed. Humans are a flawed race, but machines can be created to near perfection. If a machine posses the ability of artificial intelligence and has the ability to learn from its mistakes, it can, theoretically, surpass the intellectual capabilities of humans. In his 1999 book entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil states that “Before the next century is over, human beings will no longer be the most intelligent or capable type of entity on the planet” (Kurzweil, 485). He goes on to say that you could retract his statement for being false, depending on how you defined “human.” Today, human-machine is an oxymoron, but tomorrow it may be a possibility. The term “human” has always applied to the race of men, but in creating a machine that can rival or surpass a human in intellectual capabilities; do you redefine the term, or create a new one? By making machines “more human,” are we making ourselves less, and taking away our unique abilities? All of this is deemed speculation by many people, but the reality is that technology is moving in this direction. Today’s machines may not be capable of individual thought, but that is a goal that has been explicitly stated by scientists. In the area of speech recognition, David Poeppel, professor of linguistics and biology at New York University, has stated that scientists desire to use the “psychophysics and […] neuroscience” of the human brain to help machines understand the ways humans speak. Taking the physics of human speech and programming a machine to process it, is an early step in bridging the gap between machines and humans.
In the future, human technology may reach a point in which it is capable of transferring human-like emotions into the processors of machines. This concept of artificial emotion is at the forefront of the human/computer integration theory. Emotions, and the ability to reason, are what differentiate humans from machines. Without them, machines could evolve and become self aware, but they would never be able to rival human beings without a set of complex emotions. It is in this idea of emotion that separates the possible realities of the future, from the frightening truths. If a machine can walk, talk, think, and feel, what stops it from having the rights of a natural person? With that said, will technology ever really be able to replicate the complexities of human emotion? Scientists can evaluate the human mind, and use similar “wiring” to make a machine behave as we do, but to have a human mind analyze how it works is a paradox. Humans will never know exactly why, on the chemical level, it is we feel certain emotions. Today, scientists are beginning to map the brain and its relation to emotion, in order to successfully model those emotions onto machines. Regardless of the level of technology we possess, modeling and mapping is all we will ever be able to do. Machines can take on the characteristics of human behavior and reaction, but in doing so, humans are merely replicating what we perceive. Creating genuine emotion is out of our power and technological capabilities, and will always be that way.
Technology has always inspired humans to imagine and create the “machines of the future.” Our personal relationship with computers and machines is a significant driving force behind the furthering of their capabilities. In a few short decades, technology has evolved from machines with only the ability to calculate, into the possibility of “intelligent” machines with the ability to think and feel for themselves. This is as much accredited to the rise in our technology as it is human fascination with machines. In the world of reality and fiction, human history has been riddled with the desire to improve the already existing technology. Books, movies, and videogames have all represented humanity’s desire to create something of its own in machines. We want to “give life” to these machines, but regardless of the technology we possess, two questions remain. First, will we ever be able to genuinely create identities for the computers of the future; and secondly, should we?
