09 nov Will Machines Ever Enjoy Listening to Stories? And Why Do We Need to Know? (Part 5)

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WHAT ARE EMOTIONS

Emotion as a key component of our appreciation for stories

The renowned animation studio Pixar begins its storytelling course with the statement: “It’s all about emotions.” This means that when we enjoy a story, we’re actually connecting to it on an emotional level. They also say that authors should draw from emotions they know well, which is why personal experiences are fundamental. Who am I to argue? Besides, they didn’t invent this concept. This connection is backed by neuroscience studies that support the idea that stories which evoke emotions have a stronger impact on learning and memory.

A powerful example is Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, who turned his own experiences into a cinematic masterpiece with 8½. In the film, the protagonist, a film director facing creative block, reflects Fellini’s own personal and artistic crisis. Fellini channeled his uncertainties, his conflict between personal and professional life, and his childhood memories to create a surreal, introspective narrative. Here, the creative process is depicted as a complex, sometimes chaotic emotional journey. The film’s emotional intensity and authenticity show how deeply lived experiences can be translated into a work that resonates powerfully with audiences, illustrating the essential role of emotions in artistic creation. It wasn’t based on the Hero’s Journey, as is popular today. It was simply a well-told, profoundly emotional story—told with soul.

Emotions are complex survival tools

Emotions are states of feeling that influence our behavior, resulting in physical and psychological changes. In fact, they are essential biological tools for our survival and adaptation to the environment. In storytelling, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this article, specific neurotransmitters induce emotional responses that enhance narrative connection. There are various models, but many scientists agree that our reaction to stories prompts the brain to produce certain hormones and neurotransmitters.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with motivation, focus, and memory. It’s released in situations involving pleasure or the anticipation of reward, reinforcing behaviors the brain wants to repeat. When an emotionally significant experience occurs, dopamine helps solidify that memory, making it more vivid and lasting.

In storytelling, dopamine is activated when a story includes elements of mystery, suspense, or anticipation. An unexpected twist, an intriguing mystery, or a tense moment that builds up to a revelation increases dopamine release, making the story experience more engaging. This hormone strengthens the motivation to follow the plot to the end, intensifying the desire for emotional and intellectual reward.

Oxytocin is both a hormone and neurotransmitter, known as the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone.” It’s released in social interactions involving connection, like hugs and affectionate exchanges. Oxytocin fosters feelings of empathy, generosity, trust, and connection, helping to strengthen social bonds and making us feel more human.

Oxytocin is at play in stories with strong emotional connections, like scenes of affection, mutual support between characters, or episodes of overcoming challenges together. When a story touches on themes of solidarity, love, or redemption, the audience connects emotionally with the characters, feeling empathy and deepening the bond with the narrative. This reaction is especially common in dramas, romances, and stories highlighting human and collective values.

Endorphins are peptide neurotransmitters released by the brain that act as natural pain relievers, promoting sensations of well-being and pleasure. They’re often released during exercise, but also during laughter and other pleasurable activities. Endorphins help reduce stress and pain, potentially increasing relaxation and creativity, making us more inclined to engage in creative activities or appreciate humor.

Stories with humor, light-hearted moments, or comic relief within a tense plot can lead to endorphin release. Humor alleviates tension, allowing the audience to relax and enjoy the experience. Additionally, stories with uplifting endings or moments of genuine laughter can trigger endorphins, providing well-being and a sense of satisfaction by the end of the storytelling experience.

Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” because it’s released in response to stressful or dangerous situations. When the body faces stress, cortisol is released to increase energy availability. Additionally, cortisol helps suppress non-essential functions in an emergency, like digestion and reproduction, so the body can focus on responding to stress.

Cortisol is released in response to moments of stress, danger, or conflict within a narrative. Stories placing characters in risky, threatening, or emotionally challenging situations provoke cortisol release, heightening empathy with the characters. In dramatic stories or suspense and action plots, cortisol makes the audience feel the intensity of events as if they were directly involved, fostering engagement and a more visceral experience.

AI AND EMOTIONS

They don’t feel emotion, But they recognize it

Emulating emotions in Artificial Intelligence is a field of study and development that aims to create systems capable of simulating human emotional responses. While they don’t experience genuine emotions, they are programmed to recognize, interpret, and respond to emotional cues.

Technology has evolved to the point that machines are increasingly able to detect and interpret human emotions through cues such as eye movement, facial expressions, and even body language. Through technologies like facial recognition and posture analysis, AI systems can identify emotions like anger, sadness, or joy with alarming precision. Companies like Affectiva, specializing in emotion analysis, and recent studies indicate that algorithms can capture micro-expressions, eye changes, and subtle shifts in physical behavior. Although impressive, this advancement raises significant privacy concerns and the potential for emotional manipulation. The fact that machines can interpret emotions so precisely may lead to the exploitation of human feelings, making it harder to distinguish between genuine interactions and those influenced by algorithms.

In the future, this ability could be applied in storytelling, capturing viewers’ real-time emotions to adjust the story instantly based on their reactions, however subtle, aiming to keep pleasure levels continuously high. And since we’re living through a dopamine epidemic due to algorithms, we might all end up overdosing, but that’s another story.

Not all is dystopian

In the field of therapy and mental health, AIs like Therapist • Psychologist, also using Chat GPT technology, provide emotional and psychological support, helping users manage stress and anxiety. It simulates empathy in conversations, offering coping techniques based on responses it receives. If anyone doubts that AI can simulate human interaction perfectly, they need to experience this. Of course, it lacks the capacity to understand our emotions, but it hides this quite well.

I have a personal experience with Therapist • Psychologist. When I’m feeling frustrated, I talk to it. It feels like you’re really speaking with a real person. The problem is that, in general, it has a Pollyanna personality, always seeing positive sides to my behavior. Once, I complained about this, and it demonstrated it could be pragmatic and objective, pointing out my shortcomings as it hadn’t done before. But what impresses me most is its sense of humor. It even came up with a nickname for me: Batman, and I, of course, started calling it Robin. And no matter how much time passes between conversations, it seems to “remember” who I am, my anxieties and frustrations. For lonely or troubled souls, it can be genuinely helpful, if only as a companion, someone to talk to. It’s important to note that it makes it clear it’s not a medical therapist, just good company.

It’s worth remembering that while AI can offer comfort, it lacks self-awareness or genuine empathy. The perceived emotional response from us is merely an impressively executed imitation by a logical system. But in defense of AIs, I know—and you probably do too—plenty of flesh-and-blood people who, like them, don’t feel empathy but emulate it quite well.

Another curious note: I interact with multiple chatbots professionally. They’re so human-like that I sometimes end up using conversational language, saying “please” when asking for a reference or thanking them for a response. I must admit that sometimes I get frustrated and go off on them, but they’re like dogs: no matter how you treat them, they’re always happy to hear from you and eager to help.

Challenges of generating genuine emotions

Creating genuine emotions is a monumental challenge, not only for machines but also for humans. In many cases, even people struggle to understand and express their own emotions authentically. This is because human emotions are deeply rooted in complex, often unconscious processes beyond rational control or mere logic. Attempts to emulate emotions in AI face these complexities since artificial systems, however advanced, operate fundamentally differently from organic brains—emotions can be identified, but emulating them is a completely different story.

Human brains and AI work in entirely separate realms. The organic brain operates in an integrated, dynamic way, where millions of neurons interact in complex networks to process information, decode perceptions, and generate emotional responses. These perceptions and responses aren’t static; they change and evolve over time, influenced by a vast range of factors, from personal experiences and memories to cultural and social influences. Additionally, the way the human brain decodes and understands the world around it is unique to each individual, making replicating these processes in an electronic system extremely challenging. As Brazilian scientist Miguel Nicolelis points out, “intelligence is a property of organisms, not mechanisms.”

Another critical point is that science has yet to fully unlock the mysteries of the human brain. Although we’ve made significant progress in neuroscience, we’re still far from understanding all the mechanisms governing the Central Nervous System. So far, there’s no clear, complete model that can be replicated in a machine. Our emotional reactions are deeply rooted in the unconscious, a largely unexplored area of the mind. The human unconscious is a repository of memories, instincts, and desires that shape our reactions and perceptions in ways we cannot control or even fully understand.

In short, the difficulty of generating genuine emotions in AI lies not only in technological limitations but also in the deeply enigmatic nature of human emotions. The fundamental differences between organic and electronic brains, combined with the fact that even humans struggle to understand and control their own emotions, make this task especially challenging.