As machines become more like humans (for example, artificially intelligent neural networks) will they eventually be able to "feel" pain?

I don't mean acting as if they did, but actually feeling the sensation of pain?

Or is there something about an organism that is required for this sensation to occur?

Yes, they will have computers that can feel sensation.

Only if we tell them to. Why would we do that?

This could easily bring in a plethora of other thoughts but...

what is pain except that it's a signal sent by the nerves to the brain which are interpreted and some kind of standard reaction results.

It's possible now for a computer to be equipped with the proper sensors and programmed to respond in a certain fashion (eg., move away from where the "pain" occurred).

I see no difference between "acting" as if it feels pain, and feeling pain. The stimuli, process, and result are the same.

What he said. Why bother?

to a machine there would be no difference between being programmed to feel pain and actually feeling pain, any more than we truly feel pain, its our "sensors" telling us to feel pain in order to respond in a certain way for self preservation, and a machine thats designed to feel pain and act the same way would be no different.

With AI development wouldn't it be wise to make it know pain. To give it a point of reference so that it can understand hurt and decide whether to inflict it or not.

But couldn't the sensation of pain be an unexpected consequence? Especially now that we are starting to use the human brain as a model ... for example:

"Researchers at IBM's Watson Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., are trying to make the model even more complex, building layered neural networks that behave according to biological characteristics of the nervous systems of vertebrates."

from: Neural Networks & Connectionist Systems

That's a good point. I remember a joke about behaviourism (the same line of thought)...

Two behaviorists walk into a bar. One says "Your fine." The other replies "So are you."

(behaviorists do not distinguish between directly observable and non-observable psychological states)

That's true ... I can't help but believe pain would be unexplainable otherwise.

Although ... now that I think about it, I wonder what kind of ethical issues this might create. Would it be wrong if a wiz kid made a machine feel intense amounts of pain? Part of me wants to say 'no'...

i dont think giving machines the choice to inflict harm on people or not is a good idea, but the ability to realise they are being damaged and move away from the industrial furnace or whatevers hurting them makes sense to me.

Three Laws of Robotics

Asimov had it about right.

We'd better not make them too smart then ... or they'll start fighting for robot rights

will sentient robots obey the three laws?

As said before in this topic, it depends on what you define pain as. Physical pain is just electrical messages sent to the brain from the damaged part in the body, and could be done with machines/robots.
But emotional pain, is IMO impossible.


Extreme Coder

Your right, a robot on an assembly line will never feel pain. A robot built like a planetary lander will acknowledge damage. A robot that we've all seen in science fiction shows that behave very human like is altogether different. Today the processing requirements necessary just to stand vertically is substantial. To move, act and be able to communicate will come sooner rather than later. Of course you can program the robot to operate very simply but I remember watching a show about AI and in simple desktops, programs that are most frequently used will start up faster because the system has learned your habits. This hadn't been programed, the system learned by itself, is this a step towards sentience? Now add this to the computational resources of a robot that has the ability to walk and communicate. Will it learn, will it develop a sense of self, of emotion that will interpret the sensory messages as pain.

The real question is not whether or not machines will be able to feel pain (a machine that is programmed to sense an overheating component feels pain), but whether or not they will ever be conscious, thinking things.

And my answer is... certainly not in the near future. This is my opinion simply because we don't even know what consciousness is, much less how to fabricate it.