Emotions and artificial intelligence

• Author: Julia Stanek
• Pages: 129-142

129

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Julia Stanek2



Emotions are one of the key actors in the ensemble of elements that shape our

lives. This statement is perfectly obvious and should not in any way whatsoever

come as controversial. However, it is much less of an obvious statement that

emotions are a decisive factor that shapes the way we think and make decisions.

As shown by the most recent psychological and neuroscientific studies, it is

not the rational balancing of arguments, but rather emotional processes that

ultimately influence the choices and decisions we make3. And this conclusion is

not groundbreaking at all, since David Hume already claimed that “reason is, and

ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office

than to serve and obey them”4. Nowadays, Jonathan Haidt puts forward a similar

argument5. He claims that it is emotional processes that emerged at much earlier

stages of evolutionary development that rule the ways of our thinking. Because

1 This paper has been prepared within the National Science Centre project nr 2019/33/B/

HS5/01521. Translation by Michał Oldzki.

2 Dr hab., prof. AFM Krakow University; Assistant Professor at Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski

Krakow University; attorney-at-law; e-mail: jstanek@afm.edu.pl; ORCID: 0000-0001-8022-2196.

3 Bence BAGO, Wim De NEYS, “The Smart System 1: evidence for the intuitive nature of

correct responding on the bat-and-ball problem”, “Thinking & Reasoning”, Vol. 25:3, 2019, pp. 257-

299; RAOELISON, Matthieu, THOMPSON, Valerie A., De NEYS, Wim “The smart intuitor: Cognitive

capacity predicts intuitive rather than deliberate thinking”, “Cognition”, 2020, Vol. 204:104381;

BLANCHETTE. I. (ed.), “Emotion and Reasoning”, NY: Psychology Press, New York, 2014; HAIDT,

Jonathan, “Moral psychology and the law: How intuitions drive reasoning, judgment, and the search for

evidence”, “University of Alabama Law Review”, Vol. 64, 2013, pp. 867-903.

4 HUME, D., “A Treatise of Human Nature”, T 2.3.3, p. 415.

5 HAIDT, Jonathan, “The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to

moral judgment”, “Psychological Review”, 2001. p. 819.