Preface AcknowledgmentsIntroduction | The Machine Has No Fear1. The Positive Affects of Alan Turing 2. Shaming AI: Helplessness, Confusion, and Error 3. Artificial Psychotherapy 4. Walter Pitts and the Inhibition of AffectNotesAppendixes References Index

Affect and Artificial Intelligence is the first indepth analysis of affect and intersubjectivity in the computational sciences. Elizabeth Wilson makes use of archival and unpublished material from the early years of AI (1945-70) until the present to show that early researchers were more engaged with questions of emotion that many commentators have assumed.

"Original and beautifully written." -Lucy Suchman, Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University "An elegantly written, thoroughly engaging, and absolutely compelling history of the role of emotions and affect in thought about, and design of, 'artificial intelligence.'" Robert Mitchell, Duke University and author of Bioart and the Vitality of Media "In this fresh and provocative contribution to the exploding field of affect studies, Elizabeth Wilson argues convincingly and in a spirit of welcome generosity that from its very beginnings the theory and practice of artificial intelligence has been decisively marked by feelings-surprise, curiosity, delight, shame, and contempt-as well as computational logic. She suggests, with wonderful wit and a fine intelligence, that interiority is conjugated by positive and passionate affects of attachment as well as cognitive circuits among humans and machines. Her own attachment to the archive of AI is palpable and her focus on the biography of key figures in its early history is immensely refreshing." Kathleen Woodward, author of Statistical Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emotions