Currently reading Affective Computing by Rosalind Picard of MIT. The book envisions computers that are trained to detect and express emotions, and thereby become better servants of people. I think the premise is badly misguided, but interestingly so.
One core flaw is that I don’t think you can have the features of emotions without the bugs. Emotions are integral to the pleasure and pain-seeking circuits of an organism. When well-tuned, they help the organism survive and thrive. When off-balance, you get addiction and depression.
The author envisions affective computing as a personal technology. But this doesn’t map to way emotions are build into the social nature of the human species. The circuits used for love and loyalty also run betrayal and tribal hatred. Given the frequency of divorce and war, it seems unlikely that we’d be able to do a better job invoking social emotions in machines.