Will a robot learn to love?

Remember «Blade Runner», where androids fought with people for a place in the sun. Or “I sing the electric body!” Rhea Bradbury, where the electronic nanny found an approach to each of the family members and turned out to be more humane than the people themselves. Another wonderful cartoon «Wall-E».

Popular culture is full of examples of authors devoting their work to artificial intelligence. They had everything — fear, attraction, admiration, and contempt. People are both afraid of cars and interested in them.

This interest is inextricably linked with the questions, where is the line between man and artificial intelligence, will it ever disappear? Can robots learn not only to think, but also to feel and behave like us? Can a robot ever become a human?

New fields of science are trying to find answers to questions. Experimental robotics develops programs in an effort to reproduce specific human behavior, such as the ability to love. Creates machines that could learn through development in the same way as humans. Mature from newborn to adult.

“My research at Kyoto University is focused on building a robot with human emotions that can learn emotional behavior from the people it interacts with. Mostly care and compassion. Learning by example is the way we could create a machine capable of experiencing the full range of human emotions,” says Professor Angelica Lim.

Where do human emotions come from?

Before taking on the creation of an emotional robot, experimental robotics tries to figure out how people themselves learn to feel and whether they learn. Although this process still seems like magic, psychology is slowly revealing some of the secrets.

At the age of two, a small child begins to speak, and therefore, learns to name his emotional states. The word «sad,» for example, refers to a specific set of physiological and psychological manifestations, along with associative expressions of this feeling in tone of voice, facial expressions, and body movements.

Sadness is expressed by slow speech, lowered corners of the lips, sluggish movements. Anger, on the other hand, is usually associated with tense, harsh speech, furrowed brows, and quick, aggressive movements.

As we get older, we use the full range of external expression to convey our inner state as accurately as possible and demonstrate our emotions to others. Sometimes we give emotional characteristics to objects of non-human nature — for example, we say that the music was sad or the dog was happy for us.

Sometimes we try to listen to ourselves, to accept our feelings, in order to more accurately convey to others what we experience. For example, I may find myself raising my voice often when I’m scared or excited, and people mistakenly assume that I’m angry.

Often we express emotions quickly, involuntarily, subconsciously choosing one way or another to convey information to others.

But how do we do it all? Do we learn this, or are we born capable of demonstrating our emotional state, or are both options equally true?

For a long time it was believed that the ability to express emotions is due to biology, especially if we talk about the basic ones, such as joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise.

However, new research has shown that the way a person expresses emotions may, at least in part, depend on learning at an early age. People take an example from their parents, grandparents, peers, and in this way they learn to demonstrate feelings.

Have pity on the robot

Relationships with parents or other significant adults at a young age are of great importance. Research has shown that when a newborn monkey is taken away from its parents, its brain develops differently in areas that control social-emotional behavior.

“The data obtained prove that caring for a child from an early age, or lack of such care, can dramatically change a person’s future emotional behavior, including at the genetic level,” says Lim.

The experience of early childhood affects the whole life, affects the formation of emotional intelligence. For example, orphans who grew up in an orphanage later face difficulties in expressing basic emotions — joy, sadness and fear. But they are very good at showing their anger.

This is important to consider when creating sensitive robots.

Teach the machine to feel

How can you use the knowledge gained in the creation of robots capable of expressing emotions? Experimental robotics is working to create a machine that can learn to behave the way children learn.

At the first stage, scientists will model such software that will work like a human brain. Then the robot will be placed in a certain environment to train the «brain». For example, through interaction with a caring guardian. In turn, he will help the robot develop emotions in the same way as he would help a child deal with fear, anger or joy.

But let’s ask ourselves, what are feelings for a robot? And how do we know what emotions he is experiencing? Suppose that the joy for the robot is when all its systems work perfectly, the battery is fully charged, the temperature is normal. The newborn feels the same way when he is clean, well-fed, healthy and vigorous.

On the other hand, the robot will feel unhappy if something breaks in the systems, the battery runs out, there are problems with the microphone or video sensors. As if a baby were hungry or frightened.

Guardians communicated with robots, showing emotions, taught how to properly show feelings when he is upset or cheerful. For example, when the robot feels good, the guardian plays funny games with him, smiles, laughs. When the robot is upset, the guardian takes pity on him, demonstrates compassion, empathy, sadness.

As a result, the robot trains to express its internal state, based on the models that it is taught.

If the guardian changes the way an emotion is expressed, the robot will also be affected. For example, if a person sympathizes with an upset robot, shows that he is also upset, will speak to him slowly, in a sad voice, the robot will learn to show that he is upset, while using tools that indicate sadness, sadness.

If the caregiver scolds the frustrated robot by showing annoyance or anger, the robot will learn to express sadness using the tools we normally associate with anger.

The same can be done with joy. To teach the robot to express it violently, with exclamations and laughter. Or show him a quiet joy, a calm reaction. As with humans, there are many such options.

Can a robot love?

There are two ways to create a robot that will experience feelings. The first is that artificial intelligence can be programmed to behave as if it is in love, to show emotions outwardly. However, this will not mean that the robot feels, rather, it will simply portray love.

The second and less obvious way is to create something more like a brain than a computer. This system will not be controlled hierarchically from top to bottom. On the contrary, the elements of the system will be more like the human nervous system. With such a structure, you can create a computer that you can actually love.

“I have always leaned towards the second way. Instead of programming a robot to show feelings, we can teach it to be happy and love,” says Lim.

Emotions color our every action, every word, our facial expressions, gestures. Through the ability to manifest them, we can survive in the social world.

Robots are becoming more and more integrated into our lives every year. And if they can recognize our feelings and respond to them, it can be beneficial. Emotional robots will be able to communicate with us in a way that is clearer and more convenient for us. For example, instead of blinking and beeping when the battery is low, they could sigh, shake their heads, or limp.

The task is not to create robots that can fall in love, be offended or angry. Scientists set themselves the goal of inventing machines that will become more human. After all, every year we ourselves are more and more behaving like robots.