Yes, I do believe Robots and the machine would be developed to assist Mankind to a certain degree (Or harm depending on how the machines are used), but for the last time and for the love of Pete my fellow humans, they will not develop their own sense of judgement or feelings. It is technically impossible, because the command: go out in the world and learn. Is too vague a command to give a machine. It is not the way the formulas work. Programmers can pitch in here as they like and explain the process if I failed to.
If you wish to give a robot the command to go out and learn (so that it would develop as a human), you'll also have to define the command 'learn'. What does learning entail? How will it be programmed to learn? If you program the machine to pick the right choice, there will have to be a set of rules it would have to be programmed on in order to make its decision. These rules are calculated, not blindly (randomly) picked through intuition (because that sort of thing cannot be instilled in a machine)(unless the commmand was pick randomly, but even then there is certain to be a probability formula involved)... not only because machines are technical material.. but because we humans ourselves do not know what feelings are or where they come from.
I believe feelings come from the brain...and that the brain is a complex organ that still needs to be studied. But until the complexity of feelings is cracked, robots will not feel. End of story.
Robots will calculate and be programmed to possess human-like qualities. But these qualities will be programmed qualities instilled into them by humans. Of course one would like to believe otherwise... humans never sieze to dream but well... try to be logical about it.
I just rolled my eyes enough in the past few weeks. I had to express my annoyance here.