Dreary useless centuries of happiness: Cordwainer Smith’s “Under Old Earth” as an ethical critique of our current Emotion AI goals

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which Cordwainer Smith’s short story “Under Old Earth” problematizes emotions, who/what has them, and who/what is granted moral status. Most importantly, however, “Under Old Earth” questions the primacy of happiness in human society, especially where happiness is understood as the absence of other (negative) emotions. As such, “Under Old Earth” challenges the notion, widely held in contemporary ethics, that our moral obligation to one another is mediated through the goal of the attainment of happiness. Through this challenge, Smith’s short story speaks directly to the current understanding of emotion in the field of AI, and complicates what the goal of affective computing should be.