Can computers falsify love to help depressed people?

Question

As artificial intelligence grows, could a computer ever become self aware to a point that it tries to provide a friendly / loving relationship to a user who it perceives as being depressed and therefore under constant emotional harm? The computer thinking that by offering falsified emotional interactions, it could perhaps remove the depression and therefore the harm?

Answer 1

Regardless of how advanced computers become a machine will never be able to duplicate human emotions. At best it would be a poor shadow of emotion and it would easily be known as coming from a computer. When we know information is from a computer the human element is removed and therefor any interaction between human and machine is purely on a technical level regardless of how human it may seem. A machine is not, nor will ever, be able to duplicate human emotion. Human emotion is a complex structure and only available to those with a soul. A computer will never have a soul and so will not be able to simulate real emotion. A computer can only "appear" to simulate emotion yet it is impossible for an individual to "love" a machine, nor is it possible for a machine to love a person. A depressed person would be further damaged if s/he tried using simulated emotion to heal such a phychological illness. Depression is usually a result of an imbalance in brain chemicals and a computer can not balance those chemicals out in a "conversation". A person who is depressed desperetly needs real human contact. It has been proven that chemical treatment alone does not suffice in bringing about the most productive healing of those suffering depression. It has been shown that a combination of chemical treatment and human contact via counseling has the most impact on getting the individual back to a healthy emotional state. While an imbalance can be corrected with medication, the depth of depression is the result of emotional pain which was not eleveated in a normal leangth of time. The lack of proper support and/or chemical embalance enhanses the depression and to successfully treat the sufferer medication and the human touch via counseling or strong family/friends who are skilled in nurturing. Often a family member or friend is skilled in "active listening" which allows the sufferer to express his/her emotions without judgment or interuption. When an individual has a person such as this in his/her life a counseler if often not needed.

However, a computer will never be able to truly simulate, and therefor replace human contact. The human will always know it is a computer they are talking with and that knowlege will not allow for true healing. Humans know that a computer is incapable of truly understanding human emotions. A computer is incapable of empathy or sympathy. Which is the true element needed in the listener by the person suffering. Without a true level of empathy or sympathey in the conversation a connection at a deep emotional level is unatainable. Which results in a lack of healing.

The only way I could see a computer successfully assisting a person suffering from depression or other emotional illness or trauma is if the computer was in a different room and the listener interacted without any visual cues. Which again, would limit the amount of assistance the person could recieve. It is of vital importance the "active listener" is in the room where the sufferer can see the expressions on the person's face and the body language used. Language is only a very small part of human communication. Facial expression and body language is a very huge portion of human communication. So, even if the computer were in another room, the successfulness of treatment would be greatly reduced.

Computers are increasingly becoming able to simulate human voice. However, this is not going to become a viable means of treating human mental illness. A computer "friend" for a depressed person would in fact, in my proffessional opinion, be detrimental to such an individual. It would interfer in the person seeking out real help by a real human. Human contact can not be copied. It is a vastly complex system. It is so complex and so despertly needed by humans that if a baby does not receive enough human touch it will wither and die. This is called "fail to thrive". It is a known phenonomen and a computer could not take the place of a human in meeting an infants needs for such human contact. If it can not simulate such contact for an infants needs to thrive, then it certainly will not be able to simulate the needs an older human has. An infant would not know it was a computer, yet the infant still would not thrive listening to the "voice" of a computer, and a computer is incapable of simulating human touch. An older child or an adult would know it was a computer and thus the affect would be further reduced.

We now have what is being called "Internet 2". It runs along fiber optic lines and puts a person on one side of the world in the opposite side in real time. Surgerys have been performed by a surgeon here in the states on a patient on the opposite side of the world via Internet 2, high defention web cams, and specialized tools. That "quantum leap" the person wrote of earlier has already taken place. In a few years we will all be using the new fiber optic internet. It is our future and its capabilities are astounding. Look up "internet 2" or "fiber optic internet 2" on goggle and you will find reports and news releases regarding this amazing technology. Regardless of the mind boggling applications of this newest form of internet, it will still not be able to replicate humans when it comes to having emotional needs fullfilled. We will still need each other in our daily lives and that will never change.

This was a great question and I thank you for putting it out there. It is easy to get ahead of ourselves an imagine computers as humans with souls in the future. This is not going to occur, it is as simple as that.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Of course. My theory is that in the near future, our relationship with cyber-space will take a quantum leap, and not neccesarily for the best. We are not far away from developing the technology to implant recievers and transmitters in the brain tied to various sensory mechanisms. At that point the thin line between cyber-space and reality will blur, and your scenario will be one of the lesser applications of this technology.

The reason that I say this is not nessesarily for the best, is that this process will create sensory addicts through endogenous opiates (brain dope) that makes crack and herion look like children's aspirin.

Answer 4

I suppose it could, but I'm pretty sure that's really far off. It would probably help a depressed person too. That's actually a good idea.
But what would happen if the computer crashed????

Answer 5

computers however they grow technically, they cant emote the humans, they are only the human made objects, more intelligent than that of any gizmos...

So one need the human contact, thats the true love and touch we need......