Are you just a computer made of meat? Are all your thoughts, feelings and experiences nothing more than circuits made from neurons in your head? If you're like a lot of people, your answer to this question will be a definitive "No!" From science to philosophy, there are lots of good reasons to hold that human beings are more than just computing machines. Unfortunately, many of the technologists bringing versions of artificial intelligence to the market are already sure they know that we are. Suddenly we might be leaving our grandmas and maybe even our kids with emotional robots because, oh well, everybody's doing it. For them people are, indeed, just biological computers.

Or your teenage son becomes immersed, with increasing agitation, in a computer game. As his temper worsens, his performance declines until he ends up trashing the console in a fit of adolescent rage. Computer angst - now a universal feature of modern life - is an expensive business. But the days of the unfeeling, infuriating machine will soon be over. Thanks to break throughs in AI (artificial intelligence), psychology, electronics and other research fields, scientists are now creating computers and robots that can detect, and respond to, users' feelings.