X-Message-Number: 15925 Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 08:54:58 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: about machine intelligence etc Thomas Donaldson stated: "1. As seems to happen often, the issue of emotions etc seems to have been forgotten by some of those discussing these issues. They deserve the same attention as intelligence, certainly if you wish to make a truly autonomous AI machine (not that we've yet come close, but people are working on it). If we really want independent machines, we're going to have to understand not just how our brains produce and deal with knowledge, but how they produce and deal with emotions too. Right now, this isn't known ... though they know more about emotions than about knowledge." Thomas, could you please elaborate? Which emotions exactly, in your opinion, would be required for an autonomous AI to function? It seems to me that an AI could recognize danger and be cautious without the feeling of fear. It could achieve goals without the feeling of joy/satisfaction. It could experience failure without the feeling of sadness. It could strongly disagree with another AI without the feeling of anger. Other than our possible desire for an AI to be more like us, why would it need emotions? Secondly, what leads you to say that we know more about how the brain produces and deals with emotions than how it produces and deals with knowledge? I don't recall seeing any of that research in my doctoral training in psychology. Best Regards, Scott Badger "Vita Perpetuem" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15925