Do robots have feelings?

[sciencenerd]

Originally Posted by Mike

Ahh, I thought I had you... but then I read the "not random enough" part. Smart.

So, if you throw a baseball at my face, I am "programmed" to duck out of the way or try and catch it (depending on my confidence in my baseball skills ). You can determine that I will duck when you throw a large blunt object at me, does that mean I am not living?

Well in this case, you only had two best options for your own good. You analyze both of them, and choose whichever one seems to be best. That's not predictability, that's intelligence.

Okay, I'm just brainstorming here, but you made me think of a new definition. Maybe this one's a little better.

When a robot can be presented with a situation that it has had no precedent of (or programming about), and, from the information it can gather, choose the best way to react to it, then it is sentient.

For example: If take a "sentient" robot that knows how to climb on objects and push on objects. Now, if you place it in a room with a high shelf (that you have programmed it to try to get to) and a stool on the opposite side of the room, it would be able to figure out how to push the stool over, climb on it and reach the shelf.

Of course, all of this is getting a little off the topic of "feelings". The question is, how do you define feelings? Feelings are a way for your body to express a desire. In that respect I would say yes, robots do have "feelings".