MDMD timely article re automata

[Doug Millison]

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/02/25/flesh_machines/index.html

" [...] You mentioned the word "emotions" a moment ago. Do you really mean
that these machines will be having genuine emotions or even that we will
perceive them as such?

That's an interesting question for us philosophically. We as humans have
had to deal with some blows to our egos over the last few hundred years.
You know, five hundred years ago, we had to give up the notion that the
Earth was the center of the universe, and with Darwin, most of us had to
give up the idea that we were fundamentally different from animals.

And now?

And now what we're left with is the belief that we're better than machines
because we have emotions. You know, when Gary Kasparov was beaten by Deep
Blue, he said, "Well, at least it didn't enjoy beating me." I certainly
think, as most molecular biologists think, that we are fundamentally
machines. We're made out of bio-molecules that interact in a rule-like
manner. So if we are emotional machines, then I don't see any reason, in
principle, why we can't build silicon and steel machines that have
emotions.

Well, will we?

As I mentioned, in our labs we have machines which everyone will agree
certainly display emotions and act as if they have emotions. It's going to
be a matter of time, as it has been with accepting evolution, before we
come to attribute real emotions to these machines. [...] "