Humans and robots now have something in common...emotions. (Creative Commons)

Funded by the European Commission, the project has involved six countries, numerous universities, and a combination of 25 roboticists, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists over the past three years.

Dubbed “FEELIX GROWING,” the project’s name is an acronym from the slogan, “FEEL, Interact, eXpress: a Global appRoach to develOpment With INterdisciplinary Grounding.”

This new trend of developing seemingly sentient creatures, while a fascinating new science, raises some concerns about the disturbing potential of no longer needing human interaction.

With society’s rapidly narrowing need to actually operate with humans and not solely with technology, it would be terrible to lose one of the main qualities that makes human interaction unique from the performance of machines. 

Dr. Lola Camañero, leader of the initiative, says that the goal is for the robots to “learn from humans and respond in a socially and emotionally appropriate manner.”

To do so, scientists have programmed them with artificial neural networks to detect voice changes, behavioral variation and movement.

Additionally, robots are programmed to learn and emotionally attach to a caregiver in the same interactive way babies and children learn behaviors during their first few years.

Eventually the robots learn to receive sensory input, and they adapt to situations based on that information, detect expressions and imprint behavior from their human companions. 

Much of the learning is physical and emotional, using positive feedback, Camañero says.

These patterns of bonding with a caregiver also occur in many primates.

The robots can detect the moods of their human counterpart and can adapt to the actions and feelings of each handler, especially caregivers that appeal to the robot’s “personality profile,” which is composed of preferences and emotions programmed into the robot.

The more time, feedback and engagement a companion invests in the robot, the tighter the bonds become and the more knowledge that is gained by the robot. 

Thus far, the prototypes are capable of expressing a range of emotions, including distress, happiness, pride, excitement, sadness, fear, and anger.

The real question now is not whether or not science has the capability to produce emotive robots, but whether or not that ability should be used.

I’ll say it, at the risk of sounding like a complete Luddite: as intriguing as this new science is, I really don’t believe that technology should ever replace face-to-face conversation.

People no longer have to visit the bank in person, shop in grocery store, or go to shopping malls.  It can all be done online. 

Even Kaiser Permanente released a study reporting that teenagers already spend most of their days looking at YouTube videos, playing video games, watching television, and browsing on Facebook.

While technology often makes things more convenient, there is really nothing comparable to human interaction, and if machines are constantly doing things for us, we’ll lose our ability to function on our own and retain our autonomy (see the movie “I, Robot” for more on this).

If we keep relying on machines to do our socializing for us, we’ll be missing out on a key ingredient to the human experience: community.

And that creates misanthropic, miserable people.

I, for one, don’t want to be only surrounded by robotic friends and TV monitors when I die.

Do you?

To reach reporter Lindy Tolbert, click here.