Muse in the Machine

When most of us think of Artificial Intelligence, we separate the notion of emotion from our imaginings. And portrayals of the likely consequences of emotions in computers invariably suggest that there would be a systemic breakdown in the computer's functionality. For example, it is the childish emotionalism of HAL in 2001 that wreaked havoc, not its superhuman intellectual capacity.

Gelertner, esteemed CS professor of AI at Yale University, has written a fascinating book on why it may be absolutely necessary to create emotionality if there is to be true Artificial Intelligence. My father used to say, "If there's Artificial Intelligence, there's bound to be artificial stupidity"; Gelertner would say, "without artificial emotionalism, there cannot be Artificial Intelligence."