Can machines feel too?

Emotions play an important role in natural human interactions. Feeling emotions and then expressing them is a task that humans do best. One can help others by conveying emotions which proves moral support, harnessing those emotions and having the ability to put it to the best use is what humans can do for each other. Feeling anger, happiness, sorrow, fear, disgust and more are some of the basic emotions felt by humans. Just like humans, shouldn’t a model made envisioning them should have emotions too?

The boom in the growth of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in our society today has made an exceptional change in the working of the society. Machine Learning and automation compliments the humans that now they are accountable for the change in the market and workforces. It is true that robots have made it a lot easier like helping in recruitment, self-learning, analyzing the data, interpreting the data, increasing the productivity, and making a flexible workplace for people. Due to advancement in technology just like they are proficient to do so much but apart from that the question arises, can they feel and think too? 

AI has upgraded from just ‘doing’ the jobs, it has moved to a much wider concept of ‘thinking’ before ‘doing’. Rather than having these unemotional machines around, wouldn’t it be more exciting to have machines which can feel and think, a machine just like a friend to you? The gap between science fiction and reality has reduced over the years. AI is among us we already are interacting with these AI systems like google’s Alexa, Siri and ride services like uber, ola etc. It has started to demonstrate the capabilities to interact with humans. Giving shape to these AI machines has made it possible to make humanoids. These humanoids are pre-programmed bots which are learning to imitate a human. Human mind is complex and with addition to that every person has their own way to perceive things, so creating an algorithm which can deal with all the people is a difficult job. With respect to this, Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist has said that “I am totally against the idea that Artificial Intelligence could recreate a human brain”. But on the other hand, Ray Kurzweil, an inventor predicts that the technology will past this test by 2029.

The discussion still continues, new algorithms are being made and are being getting tested which could provide the most appropriate emotional metrics. Emotional inputs in the data driven Artificial Intelligent machines to Emotionally Intelligent machines will create a connection with people on a personal level. The world is still evolving and with the help of AI, automation and the fusion of technology is going to be more effective to expand its horizons. 

Pratyaksha Dhall

BW Reporters An aspiring journalist who loves to gain knowledge about technological advancements and loves to write about well being and events that people can relate to.