Conscious Robots Quotes

“Our instinctive approach to achieving our aims guarantees a life that is inherently unsatisfactory, programmed always to want something that we haven’t got. It’s not surprising that we humans have been trying to get direct control over our feelings for thousands of years.”
― Paul Kwatz, Conscious Robots: If We Really Had Free Will, What Would We Do All Day?

“But if we’re robots, programmed by natural selection to maximise the survival chances of our genes, then maybe“happiness” isn’t the automatic result we’ve always assumed. Personal experiences seem to indicate a problem:“feeling good” has much less to do with our actual situation in life, and much more to do with whether our situation is improving. Pleasures fade and expectations adjust, leaving us always wanting more than we have. Even before we apply the theory of evolution to the problem, there seems to be little doubt that however much control we get over the world we live in, we’re never going to experience more than occasional sensations of bliss. Profound satisfaction is never going to be our constant waking experience.”
― Paul Kwatz, Conscious Robots: If We Really Had Free Will, What Would We Do All Day?

“If your situation in life is improving, evolution rewards you. If your situation in life is falling, evolution punishes you.”
― Paul Kwatz, Conscious Robots: If We Really Had Free Will, What Would We Do All Day?

“We’re robots in the sense of being automatic machines, doing nothing more than following instructions... from the day we’re born until the day we die. No freedom. Just doing what we’re programmed to do.”
― Paul Kwatz, Conscious Robots: If We Really Had Free Will, What Would We Do All Day?