John Hartz
Review of  “Combining Emotions and Machines”

	In his conclusion, Mr. Grosso states “I do not believe that you can actually make a machine feel, so logical the next best thing is to teach it what it means to feel.”  This statement seems to contradict itself.  Human feeling in terms of emotions, not the perceptual values such as touch, taste, sight and sound, are states of the human mind, a computing device itself.  Although some emotional states are pre-programmed, genetically hard coded, others are learned.  By teaching a machine what it means to feel, you would effectively be creating a set of emotional states that the machine would operate differently under.  Just like teaching someone to read allows them to read, teaching someone to feel allows them to feel, fully understanding the concept allows the system, biological or artificial, to experience the concept.
	Hollywood likes to portray machines with feelings as vindictive and aggressive towards their creators.  This idea is quite opposite of the nature of feelings in humans.  Humans possessing the full spectrum of emotions develop a conscience or moral compass.  On the other hand, sociopaths display behavior typical of humans with no emotional connection to the world around them, often committing heinous crimes.  Therefore teaching machines how to feel would probably be a safer route for AI development.