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No one is yet quite sure how human consciousness comes about, but many seem to assume that it will arise as a function of artificial intelligence. Isn't it just as reasonable to think that emotions will appear as an aspect of consciousness and the presumed will to survive? The answers to these questions have yet to emerge, but during the interim, is it a good idea to push ahead in the development of artificial intelligence when we have such a limited understanding of our own? What about the possibility of mental illness? Even if we succeed in endowing AI with a morality compatible with our own, what would we do with a super human intelligence that becomes delusional, or worse, psychotic? Would we see it coming? We can't prevent it from happening to ourselves, so what makes us think we could prevent it in a machine?
Nervously awaiting learned opinions,
VT
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 22 2019, @08:44PM
Hormones are merely a mechanism.
The function of emotions is threefold:
On one hand, they are a way to prioritize certain fundamental goals. For example, fear prioritizes averting danger.
Second, the emotions reconfigure your brain to be optimized for that goal. Processes that help with that goal are enhanced, processes that are detrimental to that goal are suppressed. Since those mechanisms are hard-coded and evolved for a different environment, they don't always work that well in our modern environment; for example, suppressing complex logical thinking is a great idea when dealing with a dangerous animal where taking time for thought means risking your life, but is not exactly helpful when what you fear is failing a test.
And third, they also prepare your body for the actions likely to be necessary (again, for the scenarios they evolved for). For example, fear prepares your body for fight or flight, but also for staying motionless to prevent being noticed. The last one probably is the reason why hormones play such an important role: Hormones are the main communication system of our body.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.