Why code robots, avatars and software agents with compassion? In one word: Neuroplasticity. Repeated exposure to objects, relations,emotions changes who we are. Recent Discoveries in Neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, Psychoneuroimmunology, etc. show biological benefits from compassion - witnessing it, giving it or receiving. Designing technologies without considering how they change us, without designing to display or encourage compassionate we are in some sense encouraging our psychopathic tendencies through our daily interactions. Slides contain some disturbing graphics.
see paper: Engineering Kindness 2015; email contact cindymason@media.mit.edu
1. Giving Robots Compassion
Cindy Mason
cmason@steam.stanford.edu
www-formal.stanford.edu/~cmason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
2. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Knowledge Transfer in Society
Knowledge translation (KT) is the process by which new knowledge is transformed into
information that benefits society through changed policies, behaviors, programs, or practices.
KT is a systematic process that begins with collecting and analyzing the latest research
findings. Then, research-based recommendations are made regarding best practices and
treatments. Finally, this synthesized and translated knowledge is promptly and effectively
disseminated to those who need it.
“The long term goal of knowledge translation is measurable improvement in people's
health.” Frank Moss, MIT
http://www.msktc.org/Knowledge-Translation
PRELUDE
3. Why Design Robots and Device Interfaces
For Compassion? It Rubs OFF!
Sociaty
Health
Happiness
Economy
Human to
Human
Contact
Man
Machine
Dialogue
Our Symbiotic Relation With Gadgets
Influences Human-Human and Society(1)
-Neuroplasticity
-High rate of user frustration,
Anger and aggression (2).
-Positive mental state linked
To positive health, cognitions
And relations (Davidson, etc.)
-Lack of compassion linked
To psychopathic and sociopathic
behaviors (3)
1. Nass, C. & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and mindlessness: Social responses to computers. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 81-103.
2. Riseberg, J., Klein, J., Fernandez, R., Picard, R.: Frustrating the user on purpose: Using biosignals in a pilot study to detect the user’s emotional state. In: CHI. Los Angeles (1998)
3. http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/2/84.full Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci (2007) 2 (2): 84-92. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsm001
C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
4. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Us
E-
Readers
Glasses,
Canes,
Watches
Cell
Phones
Lap
Tops
Video
Games
Phone
Menus
ATM
Robots
GPS
Car
We Are Surrounded!
The Emotional Intelligence of our Gadget Interfaces becomes central
as Humans and Technology are intertwined now and in future.
For decades gadgets were designed
for use without much human
interaction.
We now interact verbally and non-
verbally in a human-machine
symbiosis.
China and the US have more mobile
phone subscriptions than people!(1)
(1) "ITU releases latest global technology development figures" (aspx). ITU. 2012-08-09.
FACT: More people have gadgets than healthcare. This means that positive affect
in human-machine interaction promises to globally widen both cognitive and
physical health at all social levels.
5. C. Mason, Giving Robots Compassion
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Psychopaths’ brains show differences in structure and function
November 22nd, 2011 in Neuroscience
S. Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our
Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves, Ballantine Books, New York, 2007.
Images of the brains of prisoner’s who are convicted of murder, show important
differences between psychopaths and non-psychopaths – the parts of the brain
associated with emotional callousness and anti-social behavior.
-The Ventromedial prefrontal cortex the is
responsible for sentiments such as
empathy and guilt.
-The amygdala mediates fear and anxiety.
-These two areas are important
communicate in processing empathy and
in perceiving the mental and emotional
state of others. Reduced in psychopaths(1).
-Designing UI for compassion is important
because the brain is adaptive (plasticity)
and repetitive social and emotional
behavior influence us (2).
The Brain Structure of Psycho-killers
6. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Us
Readers
Online
Education
Glasses
Cell
Phones
Lap Tops
Video
Games
Phone
Menus
ATM
Robots
We Are Surrounded!
The Present: We are surrounded individually and collectively with interfaces
devoid of emotional intelligence.
• Devices have No guilt
• No emotion
• No awareness of effect on people or
other software/hardware
• No algorithms to enforce positive
social behavior
• No knowledge of importance of
emotions among programmers
• Languages and tools for programmers
to support knowledge representation
and reasoning, perception and
expression, etc. are sparse.
ARE WE USING PSYCHOPATHIC DEVICES?
7. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Neuroplasticity
• Neuroplasticity (Brain Plasticity) describes our brains natural
ability to change its circuitry to compensate for birth defects,
damage, disease, or the bad habits of unintentional programming.
• We’re participating in the wiring of our brains every waking
moment - either accidentally or intentionally.
• Brain changes and creates new connections our whole life, not
just when we’re young. Its more like a muscle.
• We change the brain based on repeated stimuli, accidentally or
intentionally..good habits or bad habits.
• Image shows effect of brain training program called Lumosity.
.
8. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
Lumosity and Neuroplasticity
• Changes in frontal-parietal activation and math skills performance
following adaptive number sense training: preliminary results from a
pilot study. Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2011 Aug;21(4):433-54. doi:
10.1080/09602011.2011.578446. Epub 2011 Jun 30.
• Further studies relate to short term memory, focus of attention, etc.
9. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
The Dalai Lama Was Right –
Without Compassion
WE ARE DOOMED!
The Biophysical Case for Compassion
• Rate of wound healing is affected by
negative emotion (deVries, et al. 2007)
• Warm contact relates to lower
cardiovascular reactivity (Kiecolt-Glaser,
2005)
• Brain glucose metabolism is affected by
psychosocial stressors (Kern et al., 2008)
• Positive motherly affect increases creation
of neural stem cells in hippocampal axis
(governs short term memory) and
expression of genes regulating stress
response (Meaney et al., 2001)
• Positive cognitive state influences positive
immune response and vice versa (Azar,
2001; Davidson et al., 2003; Wager et
al.,2004).
Mason, C., Affective Computing and Interaction: A Psychological, Cognitive and
Neurological Perspective, International J. Synthetic Emotion, June 2012.
10. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
The World’s Economic, Social and Political
Psychopathy Nightmare
Domestic Violence:
War
School Violence
Workplace Violence
Bullying
Animal Abuse
Child Abuse
Earth - Pollution
Economic Dimensions of Compassion
11. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
How Do We Give Machines Emotional
Intelligence (EIQ)?
Common Sense
Big Data Together Japan is in
the Lead
Robot Companions
Elder Care
Entertainment
Healthcare??? (the neuroplasty
connection)
• No
“If you ask, how do I know how you feel?
There are different routes: the affective
route involving empathy and compassion
and another route, the perceptive, through
knowledge based on inference.”
We could use a world wide guideline for
user interface design.
12. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
HOW TO CREATE COMPUTER
PROGRAMS WITH COMPASSIONATE
INTELLIGENCE?
INSERT EOP STUFF HERE
13. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
A COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE FOR A
SOFTWARE AGENT WITH
COMPASSIONATE INTELLIGENCE
14. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
How Do We Give Machines Emotional
Intelligence (EIQ)?
Common Sense
Big Data Together
Let the problems or
applications tell us what to do
Japan is in the Lead
Robot Companions
Elder Care
Entertainment
Healthcare??? (the neuroplasty
connection)
• No
“If you ask, how do I know how you feel?
There are different routes: the affective
route involving empathy and compassion
and another route, the perceptive, through
Sensing and knowledge based on inference.”
We need A world wide guideline for user
Interface Design.
Tania Singer during her presentation at the Mind and Life XXVI meeting at Drepung
Monastery in Mundgod, India, on January 19, 2013.
15. C. Mason
Conference on Science and Compassion
Telluride, Colorado 2012
MANY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
LAW OF ROBOTICS
ROBOT SOCIOLOGY
ROBOT PSYCHOLOGY
CULTURE
SOCIAL
EMOTIONAL
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
OF OBJECTS
16. Studies focused specifically on the power of new
Technologies to redefinie temporal and spatial boundaries of interaction
And explore the prorssive merging of human and artificial elements in
defining contemporary personal and social identity (De Souza e Silva, 2
Social psychological methodology showed that ordinary people attribut
human-like traits to those objecs that have specific interactive and
communicative capacities
And recognize them as legitimate participants in social exchange. So
Technical objects such as answering devices, robots, computers and
Software agents transform social interaction.
Editor's Notes
New email: cindymason@media.mit.edu
Knowledge Transfer in Society (also see Frank Moss’ comments)
http://www.msktc.org/Knowledge-Translation
Knowledge translation (KT) is the process by which new knowledge is transformed into information that benefits society through changed policies, behaviors, programs, or practices. KT is a systematic process that begins with collecting and analyzing the latest research findings. Then, research-based recommendations are made regarding best practices and treatments. Finally, this synthesized and translated knowledge is promptly and effectively disseminated to those who need it.
The long term goal of knowledge translation is measurable improvement in people's health and in the health care system as a whole.
Neuroplasticity teaches us that brain structure and function respond/change, no matter how old we are, to the repeated experience of stimuli.
The work of Nass and Moon (2000) as well as others, indicate not only do we treat machines like people but we have begun to treat people like machines. But we experience many negative moments with gadgets. Riesberg, Klein, Fernandez and Picard: 70% people say they become so frustrated by the machines/devices that they cuss, hit, shout, even throw the device/gadget. Positive mental state is linked to positive health, cognition capacity and relationships. A lack of compassion has been linked to psychopathic and sociopathic behaviors. LOOK OUT.
Designing everyday computing objects to have compassion gives a better experience every day
"ITU releases latest global technology development figures" (aspx). ITU. 2012-08-09.
Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a new study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Newman and Davidson. Dr. Kent Kiehl, of the University of New Mexico and the MIND Research Network, has a mobile MRI scanner that he brought to the Wisconsin prison and used to scan the prisoners’ brains. The results could help explain the callous and impulsive anti-social behavior exhibited by some psychopaths. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex processes feelings of empathy, shame, compassion and guilt. Damage to this part of the brain, which occupies a small region in the forehead, causes a diminished capacity for social emotions but leaves logical reasoning intact.
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. Two types of brain images were collected. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) showed reduced structural integrity in the white matter fibers connecting the two areas, while a second type of image that maps brain activity, a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), showed less coordinated activity between the vmPFC and the amygdala. Studies have implicated this area as important in processing empathy, especially in perceiving the mental and emotional state of others. It used to be we thought the brain was primarily influenced under the age of 5, we now know the brain is plastic (neuroplasticity) and that repeated exposure to stimuli have an effect on brain structure and function.
Neuroplasticity (Brain Plasticity) describes our brains natural ability to change its circuitry to compensate for birth defects, damage, disease, or the bad habits of unintentional programming. We’re participating in the wiring of our brains every waking moment - either accidentally or intentionally.
The human brain has over 100 billion neurons interconnected by over a trillion synapses (the points of contact between neurons which transfer and store information). It’s the primary mechanism whereby, with repetition of thoughts, feelings, and activities, we lay down new memories is via “synaptic plasticity”.
Changes occur in brain wiring, modifying the strength of connections between neurons. This form of neuroplasticity can involve adding or removing new synapses. If you remember anything you’ve read in this description of neuroplasticity, then you may have stored that new information in your brain via the formation of new connections between specific subsets of neurons!
From: http://unsettledchristianity.com/tag/neuroplasticity/ German scientist, Roth
Neuroplasticity or ‘Brain Plasticity’ within which physical brain changes in neural pathways and synapses can occur as a result of environment and behaviour changes, can we write anyone off as simply ‘genetic predisposed’ to violence?
As an relevant example of Neuroplasticity I read recently of soldiers suffering PTSD as a result of combat had evidence of neurological brain changes.
A German neurologist claims to have identified a specific brain configuration within which he says ‘evil lurks”. Measuring brain waves on violent criminals whilst watching ‘brutal scenes’ revealed a “dark patch” in their frontal brain. This area believed to be responsible for compassion and sorrow, showed no activity.
Dr Roth’s research has led him to believe “that some criminals have a ‘genetic predisposition’ to violence.”
Neuroplasticity says our brain structure and function adapts to repeated exposure to stimuli. If this stimuli is kindness or if it is callousness and indifference we are adapting very differently. Repeated exposure to stimuli rewire the brain no matter how old we are.
http://www.workplacebullying.org/2012/07/16/forum-2/#more-9284
Compassion rubs off. Kindness has many benefits for our health/immune/wound healing/etc.
NY Times article: science of compassion: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/the-science-of-compassion.html
Paul Condon and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
It seems, then, that the Dalai Lama is right: the experience of compassion toward a single individual does shape our actions toward others.
How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more compassionate than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?'
new communication technologies—especially the Internet—now allow huge numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways.
http://wiremybrain.com/brain/brains-are-tanking-the-u-s-economy
Image source: luminosity
Instead of teaching specific skills that may only be useful in specific areas, Lumosity targets core cognitive processes that underlie performance in many different areas. These processes include memory, attention and other abilities that are critical in the real world.
Hardy, J. & Scanlon, M., The Science Behind Lumosity. November, 2009.
Core function exercises improve multiple other areas…
Davidson and Lutz's working assumption that through training, people can develop skills that promote happiness and compassion.
"People are not just stuck at their respective set points," he says. "We can take advantage of our brain's plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities."
The capacity to cultivate compassion, which involves regulating thoughts and emotions, may also be useful for preventing depression in people who are susceptible to it, Lutz adds.
The Journal of Neuropsychiatry
Deficits in Social Knowledge Following Damage to Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
Linda W.Y. Mah, M.D.; Miriam Courtney Arnold, Ph.D.; Jordan Grafman, Ph.D.
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=101938
JL Hardy et al. (2011). Enhancing visual attention and working memory with a web-based cognitive training program. Mensa Research Journal, 12(2):13-20.NY Times article on UN call to quit killer robots
(send the paper on giving robots compassion?....)
From Mind and Life Conference, 2013,
Richie declared that neuroplasticity is neither good nor bad, it’s neutral, but being exposed to positive influences, leads to positive change.
Not just a desire to avoid being a psychopath… compassion (and love!) have proven to be a very powerful drug with huge side effects… Consider
Wound healing… compassionate touch material? References to chemistry of love? Pull some material from the review paper…
ALSO: because healthcare is EXPENSIVE, kindne$$ pays..
In contrast… the song Happy Birthday made: and the song Margaritaville makes….
Healthcare is expensive or non-existence in some places.
Repossessing our brains by limiting exposure to media, and instead increasing intelligent dialogue, introspection and independent analysis, could reactivate American business brains and reinvigorate the U.S. economy.
Our inherent neuroplasticity guarantees that it all comes down to a matter of choice!
Neuroplasticity
Scientists once believed that mental ability was fixed after childhood. But over the last few decades, neuroscientists have discovered that adults’ brains are constantly changing – growing new neurons and connections – in a process known as neuroplasticity. Lumosity takes advantage of the brain’s innate neuroplasticity to help shape it into a more effective, powerful organ.Neuroplasticity – not pharma, neurostimulation through therapy and rehabilitation
Neuroplasticity and society –
Brains experiencing real or virtual violence strengthen neural pathways related to aggressive behavior, making it possible to accurately predict for increased aggression 6 months later. As children’s beliefs in violence being “normal” and commonplace escalated, so did the likelihood that they would be aggressive towards others. Seeing violence, at home, school, as entertainment, or as its victim, made it acceptable, leading to more of it.
Journal Reference:
I. Orue, B. J. Bushman, E. Calvete, S. Thomaes, B. Orobio de Castro, R. Hutteman. Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Hurt: Longitudinal Effects of Exposure to Violence on Children’s Aggressive Behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2011; DOI: 10.1177/1948550610396586
Ref: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2004/9241591609.pdf The Economic Dimensions of Interpersonal Violence, WHO 2011, Geneva Switzerland
Domestic Violence: Australia stats: 2011 report on ABC News says 13 b/year http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-07/domestic-violence-costs-13bn-a-year/57284
we don't have a culture in this country of talking about it
"Primarily we wanted people to understand that there is that strong link between domestic violence and women's financial outcomes.
accountable for their abuse and their impact on women's financial outcomes.
In England and Wales, the total costs from interpersonal violence - including homicide, wounding and sexual assault - amount to an estimated $40.2 billion annually1
Interpersonal violence is defined to include violence between family members and intimate partners and violence between acquaintances and strangers that is not intended to further the aims of any formally defined group or cause. Selfdirected violence, war, state-sponsored violence and other collective violence are specifically excluded from these definitions.
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/violence/economic_dimensions/en/
Many of the studies detailing the costs of violence are from the USA where child abuse results in $94 billion in annual costs to the economy - 1.0% of the gross domestic product. Direct medical treatment costs per abused child have been calculated by different studies to range from $13 781 to $42 518.
Gun violence - which includes suicides - has alone been calculated at $155 billion annually in the USA, with lifetime medical treatment costs per victim ranging from $37 000 to $42 000.
The 1994 Violence Against Women Act in the USA has resulted in an estimated net benefit of $16.4 billion, including $14.8 billion in averted victim's costs. A separate analysis showed that providing shelters for victims of domestic violence resulted in a benefit to cost ratio between 6.8 and 18.4.
Studies documenting the economic effects of interpersonal violence have used a broad range of categories of costs. Those estimating indirect costs - including the opportunity cost of time, lost productivity and reduced quality of life - provided higher cost estimates than studies that limited the costs of violence to direct costs alone. Other key methodological issues included the economic values assigned to human life, lost productive time and psychological distress. The rate at which future costs and benefits are discounted, in accounting terms, also varied across studies.
Happy Thought: Margaritaville; Happy Birthday to You; possibly play these songs and others, to ofset the unhappy topics we are talking about?
Davidson and Lutz's working assumption that through training, people can develop skills that promote happiness and compassion.
"People are not just stuck at their respective set points," he says. "We can take advantage of our brain's plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities."
The capacity to cultivate compassion, which involves regulating thoughts and emotions, may also be useful for preventing depression in people who are susceptible to it, Lutz adds.
The Journal of Neuropsychiatry
Deficits in Social Knowledge Following Damage to Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
Linda W.Y. Mah, M.D.; Miriam Courtney Arnold, Ph.D.; Jordan Grafman, Ph.D.
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=101938
Designing everyday computing objects to have compassion gives a better experience every day
From: http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/906-neuroscience---his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-participates-in-the-26th-mind--life-meeting-at-drepung---day-3 accessed June 1, 2013;
His Holiness the Dalai Lama talking with Tania Singer during her presentation at the Mind and Life XXVI meeting at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod, India, on January 19, 2013. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
The affective includes loving kindness, gratitude, concern and warmth, while perceptive responses, which she speculated accord more with what Buddhists might call view, include memory and meta-cognition, or mental awareness of what you are doing. She also mentioned examining subjects’ genetic background and environmental traits. Different parts of the brain can be clearly identified with these different responses. She said,
“We have a lot of evidence that observing others’ emotions activates corresponding emotional areas in us. We tested Mathieu Ricard in a real-time scanner and asked him to enter into different mental states, different compassion states, non-referential compassion, loving kindness, and compassion. I could see from the brain scan when he was cultivating empathy with the suffering of others, and we got a different signal for compassion.”
His Holiness commented,
“Generally speaking, if you look at qualities like compassion, loving kindness, there is an aspiration or yearning for them to be more effective, so they have to be directed by intelligence, understanding and positive motivation.”
Instead of giving prime attention to the brain, he spoke of the mind as non-material luminous and knowing in nature. All consciousness events can be sensory or mental. Every event at a given time is composed of a mind and mental factors, basic awareness and secondary awareness. He illustrated this with vivid coloured diagrams depicting the main mind, not so much surrounded by as incorporating the five omnipresent mental factors, the factor of the event, be it compassion or hatred, and factors of virtue or non-virtue. He showed the complexity of what goes on in the mind with such determined enthusiasm that as he concluded, for the first time during this meeting, a wave of spontaneous applause swept through the audience.
Programming a computer is easier than programming the mind! And once we create a single program we can easily duplicate it many times. An intelligent software agent is a computer program with artificial intelligence. They can be “embodied” in cell phones (Siri), robots, laptops, medical equipment etc. or in software like a web browser or software telephone.
As shown in Figure 2, most artificial intelligence systems have a “cognitive architecture” with a main “thinking” loop called the “sense-act control loop”: 1) sense 2) think 3) act 4) repeat. Many people are working on building systems that can recognize emotion (step 1 -input) and express emotion(step 3- output). This works ok when the only task is to solve a problem. But now that gadgets interact with us so much, we must reinvent! For us the most important thing is a computation capability of compassion (step 2). We have designed a new cognitive architecture that takes other agents and self into account before it acts.
Figure shows the cognitive architecture of an emotionally intelligent agent designed for compassionate behaviors. it must have at least three things: common sense knowledge of compassion (behaviors, speech, norms, etc.), represent and update the state of self and other, a reasoning apparatus that takes these into account during thinking and “feeling” before it acts. To gather common sense knowledge about compassion we are buliding a web based Collective on the Common Sense of Emotion where anyone can share wisdom. We also created EOP – Emotion Oriented Programming, a special AI language for emotionally intelligent agents built on top of LISP. More about this and related projects can be found on our website: www.emotionalmachines.org
Designing everyday computing objects to have compassion gives a better experience every day
From: http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/906-neuroscience---his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-participates-in-the-26th-mind--life-meeting-at-drepung---day-3 accessed June 1, 2013;
His Holiness the Dalai Lama talking with Tania Singer during her presentation at the Mind and Life XXVI meeting at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod, India, on January 19, 2013. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
The affective includes loving kindness, gratitude, concern and warmth, while perceptive responses, which she speculated accord more with what Buddhists might call view, include memory and meta-cognition, or mental awareness of what you are doing. She also mentioned examining subjects’ genetic background and environmental traits. Different parts of the brain can be clearly identified with these different responses. She said,
“We have a lot of evidence that observing others’ emotions activates corresponding emotional areas in us. We tested Mathieu Ricard in a real-time scanner and asked him to enter into different mental states, different compassion states, non-referential compassion, loving kindness, and compassion. I could see from the brain scan when he was cultivating empathy with the suffering of others, and we got a different signal for compassion.”
His Holiness commented,
“Generally speaking, if you look at qualities like compassion, loving kindness, there is an aspiration or yearning for them to be more effective, so they have to be directed by intelligence, understanding and positive motivation.”
Instead of giving prime attention to the brain, he spoke of the mind as non-material luminous and knowing in nature. All consciousness events can be sensory or mental. Every event at a given time is composed of a mind and mental factors, basic awareness and secondary awareness. He illustrated this with vivid coloured diagrams depicting the main mind, not so much surrounded by as incorporating the five omnipresent mental factors, the factor of the event, be it compassion or hatred, and factors of virtue or non-virtue. He showed the complexity of what goes on in the mind with such determined enthusiasm that as he concluded, for the first time during this meeting, a wave of spontaneous applause swept through the audience.
Creating compassionate artifacts raises many technical, ethical and social issues. Isaac Asimov created the Three Laws of Robotics, but these are not enough. The issue of how to represent computer knowledge of emotion and compassion and the good intentions of the programmer and robot are essential to the positive outcome of such endeavor.
Designing everyday computing objects to have compassion gives a better experience every day
From: http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/906-neuroscience---his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-participates-in-the-26th-mind--life-meeting-at-drepung---day-3 accessed June 1, 2013;
His Holiness the Dalai Lama talking with Tania Singer during her presentation at the Mind and Life XXVI meeting at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod, India, on January 19, 2013. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
The affective includes loving kindness, gratitude, concern and warmth, while perceptive responses, which she speculated accord more with what Buddhists might call view, include memory and meta-cognition, or mental awareness of what you are doing. She also mentioned examining subjects’ genetic background and environmental traits. Different parts of the brain can be clearly identified with these different responses. She said,
“We have a lot of evidence that observing others’ emotions activates corresponding emotional areas in us. We tested Mathieu Ricard in a real-time scanner and asked him to enter into different mental states, different compassion states, non-referential compassion, loving kindness, and compassion. I could see from the brain scan when he was cultivating empathy with the suffering of others, and we got a different signal for compassion.”
His Holiness commented,
“Generally speaking, if you look at qualities like compassion, loving kindness, there is an aspiration or yearning for them to be more effective, so they have to be directed by intelligence, understanding and positive motivation.”
Instead of giving prime attention to the brain, he spoke of the mind as non-material luminous and knowing in nature. All consciousness events can be sensory or mental. Every event at a given time is composed of a mind and mental factors, basic awareness and secondary awareness. He illustrated this with vivid coloured diagrams depicting the main mind, not so much surrounded by as incorporating the five omnipresent mental factors, the factor of the event, be it compassion or hatred, and factors of virtue or non-virtue. He showed the complexity of what goes on in the mind with such determined enthusiasm that as he concluded, for the first time during this meeting, a wave of spontaneous applause swept through the audience.
