top of page
Search
Writer's pictureYilin Gao

Emotional Design by Don Norman | Reading Notes: Final Part

Updated: Mar 24, 2021

In the last two chapters of this book, the current states and the future of the emotional machines/ robots were being discussed. The author believes that robots will need something akin to emotion in order to make complex decisions such as choosing between the proposal due tomorrow and planning friend’s celebration. Maybe that’s an easy one for human but how does a machine possibly know which to do first?


Emotions (both positive and negative) expressed by facial expression and body language are needed to be equipped and displayed for robots to interact with people. And it must be real and natural, not according to human’s understanding. For instance, a robot should feel proud after finish a task successfully thus desiring to keep striving. Without pride, it doesn’t care.


Nonetheless, a machine can also sense emotions of people and induce emotions in people due to anthropomorphism.


On the other hand, the future of robots is full of potentials and possibilities. They can be automobile drivers, assistant teachers, assistant doctors, and even pets, you name it. Of course, this evolution will bring huge benefits as well as significant negative consequence.


How do we deal with the people whose jobs taken by robots? What happens if the machine What if they plan to conquer the planet and make humanity their slaves? Well, I guess we will have to wait for maybe another century to unveil the truth, but at least it is something we can think about from now so that hopefully we can be ready by then.



3 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page