Affective computing is a relatively new science. It is the science of programming computers to recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. The word “affects” refers to the experience or display of feelings or emotions.
While AI has achieved superhuman status in playing chess and quiz-show games, it does not have the emotional equivalence of a four-year-old child. For example a four-year-old may love to play with toys. The child laughs with delight as the toy performs some function, such as a toy cat meowing when it is squeezed. If you take the toy away from the child, the child may become sad and cry. Computers are unable to achieve any emotional response similar to that of a four-year-old child. Computers do not exhibit joy or sadness. Some researchers believe this is actually a good thing. The intelligent machine processes and acts on information without coloring it with emotions. When you go to an ATM, you will not have to argue with the ATM regarding whether you can afford to make a withdrawal, and a robotic assistant will not lose its temper if you do not thank it after it performs a service. Highly meaningful human interactions with intelligent machines, however, will require that machines simulate human affects, such as empathy. In fact some researchers argue that machines should be able to interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt their behavior accordingly, giving appropriate responses for those emotions. For example if you are in a state of panic because your spouse is apparently having a heart attack, when you ask the machine to call for medical assistance, it should understand the urgency. In addition it will be impossible for an intelligent machine to be truly equal to a human brain without the machine possessing human affects. For example how could an artificial human brain write a romance novel without understanding love, hate, and jealousy?
Progress concerning the development of computers with human affects has been slow. In fact this particular computer science originated with Rosalind Picard’s 1995 paper on affective computing (“Affective Computing,” MIT Technical Report #321, abstract, 1995). The single greatest problem involved in developing and programming computers to emulate the emotions of the human brain is that we do not fully understand how emotions are processed in the human brain. We are unable to pinpoint a specific area of the brain and scientifically argue that it is responsible for specific human emotions, which has raised questions. Are human emotions byproducts of human intelligence? Are they the result of distributed functions within the human brain? Are they learned, or are we born with them? There is no universal agreement regarding the answers to these questions. Nonetheless work on studying human affects and developing affective computing is continuing.
Source: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution (2014), Louis A. Del Monte
Human emotion will never be understood through as long as you are isolating them to the brain. The brain is NOT the seat of mind nor of consciousness. The brain, cells, nervous system, colon, … behave like an antennas capable of resonating at varying frequencies which correspond to the mind. The mind however; is a complex set of fields surrounding the body itself.
I do not agree, but respect your right to have a different opinion. Scientifically, I judge all human emotions originate from the human brain.
I counter that most emotions are encoded in High Frequency Heart Rate Variability and the immune system and hormone systems. I like Dr Candace Pert’s model of the entire body as the subconscious mind especially circulating IL6.