The only thing that separates us as human beings from artificial intelligence is emotion. If there is no emotion, then we remain just a program that functions automatically according to the instructions given to it by its programmer. The instructions might be to survive under difficult conditions, or to perform tasks in service of an industry, or even to imitate emotions to satisfy its creator or those who purchased it.

When the next model comes out, or if its services are no longer satisfactory, a robot can be thrown away without moral hesitation — because it remains an object.

Sometimes I wonder if many people are robots. Many avoid feeling, they try to suppress it, with the result that the innate ability we have as human beings becomes numb. Emotions and sensations are often an unpleasant experience — I understand that. We don’t live in an ideal world, and looking at history, it never was. The world contains everything: poverty and wealth, love and hatred, prostitution, creation, sea, air, war, and art. All these conditions are completely different, which means they provoke everything from the most painful, unbearable feelings to the most beautiful, life-giving ones. If someone feels, they cannot choose exactly what they will feel from a menu. It’s like a stew — you eat it exactly as it is.

The question is…

– Is it pleasant? Yes and no.A logical answer would be,
– Well then! Better not to feel at all and be done with it!
– I’m safe by keeping my distance from all that.
– But in that way, you’ll lose your ability to feel. It will atrophy like a muscle you never exercise, like a leg you keep in a cast forever. You might never be able to walk again when the cast comes off after years.
– Well, then let me lose it — at least I’ll have my peace!
– Alright, as you wish, but just know that if you function only through the program, then it’s not really you operating. It’s your programmer — society, your parents, your ancestors and their ancestors.
– Fine. Let it be so. They survived and did good things with their lives. Let it be.
– Okay, just don’t forget: if you’re only operating with the program, you’re no different from a robot.
– Well then! You’re paying me a compliment. I wish! Robots are so precise — I wish I could function with such precision.

if you don’t feel, you’ll never create.
And if you never create, you’ll never truly live.

The choice is yours.
Do you want to be a disposable object — or alive as a creator?

– what if a robot could authentically feel?

– Then… it would be like a human

– What will happen then?

*Photo by Tamara Gak on Unsplash – This picture is not Aria by Realbotix but an abstract picture to fit the theme of the blog