Modeling Affect: The Next Step in Intelligent Computer Evolution

Artificial intelligence has succeeded in emulating the expertise of humans in narrowly defined domains and in simulating the training of neural systems. Although "intelligent" by a more limited definition of Turing's test, these systems are not capable of surviving in complex dynamic environments. Animals and humans alike learn to survive through their perception of pain and pleasure. Intelligent systems can model the affective processes of humans to learn to automatically adapt to their environment, allowing them to perform and survive in unknown and potentially hostile environments. A model of affective learning and reasoning has been implemented in the program FEEL. Two simulations demonstrating FEEL's use of the affect model are performed to demonstrate the benefits of affect-based reasoning.