Transparent machines

Robots are learning about emotional cues:

Making robots that interact with people emotionally is the goal of a European project led by British scientists.

Feelix Growing is a research project involving six countries, and 25 roboticists, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists.

Co-ordinator Dr Lola Canamero said the aim was to build robots that "learn from humans and respond in a socially and emotionally appropriate manner".

The 2.3m euros scheme will last for three years.

"The human emotional world is very complex but we respond to simple cues, things we don't notice or we don't pay attention to, such as how someone moves," said Dr Canamero, who is based at the University of Hertfordshire.

[continues...]

Given that machines are not conscious and do not have a soul (whatever the heck that is—I feel I know ; ), could we restate the key aim of this and indeed all technology projects as "making technology more transparent to human perceptions of identity"?

The machine has no awareness or volition, as we humans understand these attributes. It serves as a mirror and/or amplifying conduit (according to context) for our own awareness and volition.

And the more transparently and subtly the machine reflects and/or amplifies us humans, the better it can enhance, rather than alienate and crush, our humanity (which, like Shakespeare's notion of beauty, after all has no more strength than a flower).

Ironic, then, that in order to achieve such transparency, the machine must emulate human characteristics, encouraging us to project onto it the very consciousness and personality it can never have.

A hall of mirrors indeed.