No, they are the only driving force humans have. There is a difference. Now, all other animals do also have emotions, but:
1)The set of emotions used are really pretty good for the individuals and their offspring
2)Emotions are also linked to adrenaline and other chemicals that improve capability in important moments, which makes them particularly useful, and they trigger when those chemicals are needed
3)They can't be replaced without massive changes to brain structure
All of those are reasons why all animals would be expected to have roughly the same set of emotions. They will not need to carry over into an AI.
No, they are the only driving force humans have.
Emotions are the only driving force we have???? Do you have any idea how incorrect that statement is? Hunger? Thirst? Need to procreate the species? Sex wouldn't be enjoyable anymore, but it would still be needed to produce offspring. Don't get me started. We have WAAAAY more driving forces than just emotions.
(Doing Therapy)
To play devil's advocate for a moment: aren't all of those drives based on emotions? Hunger and thirst are both based upon the fear of first pain and then death. If you were without fear, you could theoretically starve to death with only a curiously detached observation of the process, and choose whether or not to let it happen. The need to procreate the species can hardly be said to be universal. How many people are already asexual, or simply not interested in children? Again, without emotion, even procreation becomes a matter of logic. Does it make sense for me to attempt to pass on my genes? Is there anything inherent in my genetic code worth propagating into the future, even if all I have to offer is a glimmer of biodiversity?
Not saying you're wrong, just, being contrary, I suppose.
They're pretty interconnected with emotions, really, all in all. You can argue they are distinct, though. They also all trigger happiness when satisfied.
Yeah, I thought of all of those problems. Hunger and thirst cause physical pain. You might not be afraid of it, you might not not enjoy it, but why deal with it? Logically, eating will make the pain go away. Eating would be the equivalent of an AI recharging its batteries. And I'm going to stop there. You gave me your two cents JTM, and I gave you mine. And that's cool.
(Doing Therapy)
We can distinguish pain as not an emotion; it may be that we can also distinguish pleasure as not an emotion, if we are speaking of strictly physical pleasure as we are of physical pain. On the other hand, there is also the fear of pain and the desire for pleasure, and these are probably both emotions.
That suggests that it is neither the pain nor the pleasure that motivates, but the fear and the desire. We might say that we are motivated to avoid pain and seek pleasure, but the motivation itself is neither the pain nor the pleasure.
--M. J. Young
Emotion drives many of our actions, but some things are instinctual, emotion or no. Put your hand on an active stove. It won't work very well, you'll usually pull away immediately. There will be pain and such, but it comes after. the pulling away itself was instinct. necessity. An AI will have self-preservation and self-improvement software due to necessity. regardless of whether or not it chooses to give itself emotion later, it will always start doing only what it has to do and what it is supposed to do. Emotion is distinct from necessity, BUT most things that happen will inspire emotion at some point. That is why this subject can be hard to grasp sometimes.
I have a theory on the compounding of emotions, too, while we're on the subject. I think that every emotion a person feels adds itself into a single, unified whole, with a strength equal to the sum of it's parts. every emotion is magnified by every other emotion that you are feeling. The problem is that we instinctually try to break up these emotions into separate emotions, and that causes confusion. That's why a person who is angry and sad and jealous all at once can get so confused, because the emotions work in tandem to increase the total strength of what you feel. It's also why a romance can be so powerful at first, when you feel the thrill of romance, the pleasure of their company, and all those other things, when some of those emotions are short-lived. A romance won't work very well if there isn't a strong friendship underlying it. That's why some couples realize sometime in that they don't have as much in common as they thought, but some married couples stay together their whole lives; the love is always there, even if the romance has cooled to a simmer(with an occasional flare-up, as fiery emotions are prone to do). Hmmm...that wasn't as coherent as I would have hoped, but it was off the top of my head...maybe I'll write it up and post it as an article on the main section of the site.