Thirty-Five Years of Artificial Emotions: An Extended Case History

Abstract

Artificial emotions are being designed into a wide variety of products from interactive games to elder care robots as part of their man-machine interface. This includes both simulation and recognition of human emotional responses. The author describes his experiences developing emotion simulators for artificial intelligence and robotics since 1973, using analog and digital techniques. He has introduced synthetic emotions into increasingly complex artificial nervous system designs, some having extensive knowledge bases, semi-autonomous operation and limited self-awareness. The author’s body of work includes emulation of childhood growth and development, pain-pleasure neural functions, release of the stress hormone epinephrine, response to analgesic and addictive narcotics, oxytocin-mediated trust activity, long-term potentiation in the hippocampus for establishing memory, the mammalian fear mechanism, the endocannabinoid system, autism-spectrum disorders, fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue syndrome and various psychiatric diseases (all of which have emotional frames of reference). Some man-machine ethical considerations in this kind of experimentation are discussed.