Emotional Design and the Future

[Lance]

We've got 2 weeks to go before our next book club meeting where we'll
be discussing Emotional Design. I'm not sure how far everyone has
gotten (or who on this list plans on attending) but Don Norman begins
discussing emotional design and computers towards the end of his
book. With IBM using their Watson computer in Jeopardy I thought it
might make for a good discussion topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU-AhmQ363I

Does Watson show any types of emotion when making a decision? Does it
need emotion? What can we expect from these kinds of computers in the
future?

Can you imagine a future where these machines replace call centers?
Will people yearn to talk to a human being, or will they prefer a
machine that understands their question and can quickly diagnose a
problem? Will the machines recognize anger or frustration? Will any
attempts to "empathize" with a person be useful, or will people not
respond to what they see as a facade generated by a cluster of
servers?