In the 2015 film Ex Machina, computer programmer Caleb Smith becomes romantically attracted to Ava, an artificially intelligent robot. Caleb believes that Ava is similarly attracted to him, and they plan her escape from the facility in which she is held. It is clear that Caleb thinks of Ava not only as highly intelligent but also as capable of emotional engagement with the world. But does she really like him? Could she like him? Could a robot ever experience the emotions that we typically think of as fundamental to the human condition?

This question quickly gives rise to a puzzle. For there are reasons to think that any autonomous agent, robots included, must experience something like emotion. But there are also reasons to think no robot ever could experience emotion.

With robots being introduced in areas such as health, social care and education—areas that typically involve and facilitate emotional interaction and the forming of emotional relationships—finding a solution to this puzzle is increasingly urgent.

Robots Must Be Emotional

Artificially intelligent systems are, obviously enough, intelligent. Is intelligence possible without emotion? Empirical work and reflection on the nature of human intelligence gives us some reason to suppose that it is not; that intelligent, autonomous behaviour is deeply intertwined with emotion. An intelligent agent, amongst other things, engages in deliberation and reasoning to determine the best way to achieve their goals. Such agents sometimes reason well, conforming to the requirements of rationality, and sometimes badly. When it goes well, one might think, it goes on largely independently of one's emotional responses. If one wants to buy a loaf bread, and one knows that the same loaf costs £1 in shop A but £2 in shop B then, other things being equal, one should buy it from shop A. This is a matter of correct reasoning in which emotion plays no part. Indeed, one might think, emotion could only serve to lead one away from the path of rational decision making. Perhaps one feels a sense of pride and social superiority at shopping at Artisan Slice rather than Cheapo-Dough, leading one to make the irrational decision, thereby wasting £1.

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"If robots are to operate in anything other than isolated environments with limited options for action, then in order to cut the tangle of endless deliberation that would result from a non-emotional, purely rational approach to decision making, robots must be emotional."

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Decisions, however, are rarely so simple, and other things are rarely equal. Perhaps one knows Cheapo-Dough pays its workers badly and refuses to recognise unions; then again, one knows that one's ex is likely to be at Artisan Slice, and one wants to avoid them; to get to Cheapo-Dough, one needs walk up a steep hill (hard work, but keeping fit is important), passing through an area that one associates with the death of one's father; then again the staff are friendly, unlike the assistants in Artisan Slice who seem to look down their noses at one's choice of loaf; Artisan Slice is near a good shoe shop, and one needs a pair of trainers, but then again perhaps one ought to save one's money for a while and get a more expensive pair next week. And so on. And so on.