Belkin and Turkle

Some believe that uniqueness is based on empathy or intimacy-based emotions that are expressed through shared experiences. If humans did not have the ability to share their thoughts and emotions, their relationship would be so awkward. In Turkle’s essay, robots are not really imitating humans because they are missing something the most important thing in human society, which is sharing emotions. Turkle says “ I am troubled by the idea of seeking intimacy with a machine that has no feelings, can have no feelings, and is really just a clever collection of “as if” performances, behaving as if it cared, as if it understood us” (Turkle 267). Robots easily accept any amount of memory and other information that are applied to them by humans. However, many people doubt if emotions and emotional interactions with humans can also be applied to robots. Certainly, that is impossible. Feelings, experience, or consciousness are some concepts that robots cannot implement or understand. Those characteristics are biological traits and robots are not a biological system. They are artificial and created by humans. Their body is filled with all different inorganic materials, which is totally different from human body. Also, they do not have any backgrounds and experiences that can sympathize with humans. They cannot love anyone back. Every information and data is just installed and put into their body. When things are implemented in robots, both emotions and feelings are performing such a crucial role that has to be accounted for. However, since emotions are not an electric activity that takes huge part in humans’ brain, no one would believe that robots would be able to have emotions as humans do. Furthermore, Blackmore believes that emotions contribute to human’s uniqueness. The author states, “We wage wars, believe in religions, bury our dead and get embarrassed about sex” (Blackmore 31). Robots, or any other machines, do not believe in any religions or get embarrassed about