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122 Modern Robotics
ISSUES: WHAT MIGHT IT MEAN FOR ROBOTS TO “FEEL”?
(continued)
At some point then, a robot that combines cognition and
“emotional intelligence” to a vastly greater degree than Kismet
may receive an implicit acknowledgement of true feeling at least
to the degree humans acknowledge the feelings of their canine or
feline companions. At this point, any sense of the robot being a
fully determined machine will retreat into the realm of abstract
theory, just as few people truly believe that humans are com-
pletely determined by their genetic expression.
A little later, perhaps, certain robots may be accorded a more
or less equivalent status to humanity, perhaps even seen as an
intelligent species with whom humans live in symbiosis. And
somewhere along this road, if robots become a sort of person,
the question of what sort of rights they have will be inevitable.
Looking into Kismet’s face, it is hard not to become engaged with the sociable
robot. (©2005 Peter Menzel/menzelphoto.com)
