Robots are many things: they are complex, and difficult to program, yet they are becoming increasingly intelligent. As technology advances, so do the capabilities of robots, and artificial intelligence (AI), is quickly being adopted by businesses, manufacturers, and everyone in between. But for all the hype surrounding the technology of AI, there is one key element that AI gets wrong: the human interaction. Thankfully, scientists may now have found the solution to this longstanding problem.
In the future, robots could have a “human” approach to our emotions. Scientists believe that advances in neuroscience could endow machines with emotions, reasoning, and self-awareness, allowing robots to interact with the human population more successfully.
What Is Cognitive Neuroscience?
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes and aspects that underpin cognition, particularly emphasizing the neural connections in the brain that are involved in mental processes.
Study On How Your Emotions Change Your Brain
You may not realize it, but your brain changes how you react to situations. The more you feel, the stronger your brain becomes. This is called neuroplasticity, and it is what allows us to learn, change, and grow. Scientists recently found the part of the brain that controls emotional memory, called the basolateral amygdala, is responsible for our response to emotion.
Since your emotions change your brain, it makes sense that these emotions can trigger certain reactions in your brain. Emotional reactions happen when your brain uses several pathways to understand and store information. These pathways are the physical connections in the brain that transmit different signals. When you react emotionally, your brain uses a different pathway than responding to something cognitively or logically.
Provide Examples of Robots with Emotion
Robots and artificial intelligence have become part of our lives in recent years. From personal assistants and self-driving cars to drones and factory workers, robots are now working with and for us in just about every industry sector. But they have also become personal companions; many of us cannot imagine life without our robot companions.
There are two types of robots: the helpful ones and the scary ones. The “helpful” robots are like Roomba, and “scary” robots are like Wall-E and Terminator. The scary ones, like those, will no doubt kill you, but we already have helpful robots. Robots can vacuum the floor for you, too. Robots that act like humans (like Siri) have emotions (like anger), too. Some sci-fi movies have introduced us to robots like C-3PO and R2-D2, who develop relationships with humans. But soon, they will be able to show true emotion, too. That is the goal, and today we have good reason to believe it.
Potential applications
A recent discovery in the field of neuroscience gives us hope for a smarter, more intuitive, and emotionally intelligent robot. When researchers implanted electrodes into the human brain’s limbic region, they found they could record the brain’s responses to stimuli, like music. What is more, they were able to train the brain to respond in certain ways to specific sounds.
One of the central questions facing scientists in the field is whether robots will be developed based on what we think or how we feel. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that emotional intelligence (EI), which mediates several of the processes involved in social cognition, could be a major predictor of how people form relationships with others. This emerging concept, often referred to as emotional intelligence (EI), is at the heart of many positive social processes, such as empathy, compassion, and altruism.
Robots Would Be Capable of Emotion
The cold, hard truth is that we are, in fact, one step closer to having robots capable of emotion. AI researchers are finding that these artificial life-forms, called bots, have emotions like fear, anger, and jealousy. However, they explain the concept of emotion as something that individuals have, rather than bots having emotions.
Recent advances in computing technology have allowed devices to become increasingly capable. Now, new advancements are giving robots the ability to show emotion through facial expressions and body language.
Emotions are a major driving force behind how we as humans interact with each other. Cognitive neuroscientists are beginning to understand how emotions work and how we can use them as tools in artificial intelligence to design more advanced robots.