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Any post-apocalyptic post-human world that has been taken over by robots which we built, rests on a single theory: that at one point in one time those beings whom we gave sentience demanded equal rights, was denied them, and responded in anger. This is the classic idea behind the Matrix movie and saga of stories spawned thereof. If this being demanded equal rights, it must have been responding to a desire for freedom, implying it had emotions, which would be necessary in order to 'want' things. Let us assume we make a being that is capable of acting on its own without constant human prodding.

Let us assume that if this being is to be autonomous that it is to have a digital power gage and algorithmic instructions to re-charge every time the gage reaches a threshold level. It is also to have sensory inputs, such that if it's outer suit touches a surface the signal is communicated to the main processing unit. The machine will thus know it cannot push against a wall, or with additional programming of basic mechanics, it will know how much force it needs to apply to lift a book, and so on and so forth. It is also to have some sort of vision so that the cameras installed allow the processor to gage where objects are and how to avoid them. And also to be programmed with several self-preserving algorithms, such as, using its sensory inputs to know when it's body is being damaged and that when such a thing happens it is to execute any actions necessary to stop the damage from continuing. In this way it is programmed to act automatically and flexibly (with variations due to different variables) towards different situations.

Supporters of strong-AI will claim that the response of the being to the power gage is hunger, and its gaging of damage is indeed pain and that pain and hunger manifest themselves in the same manner in humans. However, I would like to point out that although it can be argued we are somehow 'programmed' with survival instincts, there is inherently an inexpressible thing in the individual experiences of human beings. For example: a person may be an expert of wine, he/she might know everything about how wine is made, it's molecular structure, it's history, etc. But in never having drank a glass of wine, they will never known what it is 'like' to drink wine. This can also be said of pain and hunger. That individual might even have at their disposal an arsenal of verbal tools to describe what wine tastes like and what pain or hunger feel like, but because they had never experienced it those words wold have had to be borrowed from others who tried explaining it after having experienced it. A person never having experienced wine would never be able to even attempt to describe it.

Thus the experience of pain and hunger makes these two “feelings” more than an algorithmic automatic response to pre-programmed survival instincts.

Now that we have roughly outlined an autonomous being and pointed out that it indeed does not have feelings we can deduct that if it cannot feel hunger or paid then it certainly cannot feel other more complex feelings, such as desire or anger. Though there are disagreements on the definition of 'feelings' and 'emotions', I shall refer to emotions in a general sense as anything that (lending some sort of 'common-sense' notion) the reader or I can categorize as emotions. That is, love, anger, fear, desire, etc. I argue that our autonomous being cannot feel emotions because just like drinking wine there is something that it's 'like' to be in love, or fearful of something, or angry at someone. This can be supported by the fact that often a person who has never been in love will claim they don't know what it's like. Thus our automaton is made with no emotions.

Since the robot has no emotions, it cannot feel angry at the injustice of a fellow automaton, or desire freedom, but can it learn to feel? If the robot was not made with the ability to experience can it gain the ability to experience without outside help? This is not the question I'm interested in answering. My question is whether or not this ability to experience and as a consequence emotions are necessary for consciousness. Though I find it highly unlikely that our automaton is conscious, it certainly cannot be argued that a feeling being is a conscious being, but is the opposite the true? Is a conscious being necessarily a feeling being?

I have established that I require a conscious being to have the ability to experience: that is, in order to be aware of things they have to know what it's 'like' to touch, what it's 'like' to see, what it's 'like' to taste, etc. The question remains whether or not all experiences are manifestations of emotions. Unfortunately this is extensively debatable and it largely depends on what particular definition of 'emotion' and 'feeling' one uses.

Certainly we are all acquainted with experiencing new things, given that we know already how to experience. Babies are born with a certain set of possible feelings, we know they feel hunger, fear, and joy. We've all seen a baby cry for food, scream at unsightly things and laugh at the sight of an entertaining toy. From there, because of the complexity of their cerebrum and their growing processing capacity, they are able to augment their experiences and feel a larger variety of things. Different individuals take this escalation at different paces. I do however believe this is a gradual process since our experiences depend on a) our ability to experience and b) the various input, and quite frankly a baby hasn't seen very much. The more things one sees, touches, tastes, hears, the more they experience.

Do these experiences require emotional responses? And are perhaps the experiences not complete without these emotional responses? Certainly some responses to food are emotional. When we taste something it is arguable that we always elicit an emotional response in either liking or not liking the food. We are all somewhat selective in what we eat, we have our favorites and our least liked. Even when we say the food is tastless, we are showing we dislike it for being tasteless.

It is perhaps not the entirety of consciousness that involves emotion, certainly thinking in an intellectual manner does not, but it is possibly that emotion is an inevitable development of a conscious being. Certainly without consciousness there is no emotion, so if we were indeed to make sentient beings there is the definite possibility that they would feel.

Not technically. It's software abilities must match the mechanical and/or physical abilities. Therefore if the actual machine was incapable to adapt then the program would be of no practical use.

As technology is evlolving, there are machines that have senses. But, there's still a gap between them and us. Our senses give us a diagnosis of our surrounding or primary knowledge. Machines can only obey commands and in some instances when making their own commands they are still bound to what they can and cannot do. So the fear that machines/robots will take over is very extreme. It is just paranoia output into an apocalyptic desire of ones own fears.