Me and Marvin

In today's paper was a short interview with Marvin Minsky about the new book he has just written. It deals with emotions and how they are important. People, he says, are not just rational beings, emotions, he says, are a different way to think.

Now, I have been a fan of Dr. Minsky's for a long time. He is one of the guys who is a leader in the Artificial Intelligence field and has been for years. And he is a pretty intelligent guy himself. But I feel (see that I feel) that this issues is kind of a straw-man thing. I mean, who really thinks people make rational decisions? Almost all decisions are made on an emotional basis. They are either made to help you feel better, or stop you from feeling worse.

A lot of decisions are just made out of habit -- but the habits have been established from rewards and punishment, which is emotional learning.

Any problem, even something as bland as 43 x 71 = ?

If you get it right you feel better. Then you begin to think you are good at math, next thing you know, you like math better and you are getting more problems right.
Learning works better when it's fun, and or meaningful. Anything you learn without any emotion will not be recalled as well. (3053)

Too much emotion -- like trauma, leaves an indelible mark, often irreversible.

That is why, in my therapy, I try to keep them laughing or crying. That way they can learn to change, and remember it.
i.e. "The doctor told me this cute joke about the guy who used to hit his wife, and he ended up getting his testicles fried. Now I think of that every time I get pissed-off, and I don't hit her any more."

See, that's progress.

It will be a really long time before machines "care" about anything. Until then they won't be like humans. I think Marvin would agree.