Last week’s IDSA conference in Miami--named Project Infusion for its focus on dramatic change in the near future--was a blast. Halfway through a robotics talk by Willow Garage, I thought to myself: "Robots must be slapped...and feel it."

Keenan Wyrobek and Leila Takayama of Willow Garage had just presented many amazing movies of their work with robots. Their lab is like a scene from Star Wars: an arm is tested here, a broken robot is repaired there, and creative mayhem is all over. While I love tech objects and definitely think some of these are close to becoming a ‘being,' I think we should seriously consider slapping a robot.

Pain and shame are two senses missing from any tech ‘being.' I don't have an option if I want to inflict shame or pain--you know the feeling when Vista is crashing or the printer goes nuts? Wouldn’t be nice to just kick the damn thing rather than yell out? I mean real kicking! And kicking knowing that the ‘thing’ will know it has been kicked in the jewels. The algorithm is simple: "Whatever routine you just worked through is really bad, never do that again! Especially if user:gadiamit is involved."

I can see the robot-rights activists coming at me. Welcome! Here's the deal: intelligent life forms understand fear, shame, anger, and pain. We better start programming these feelings into robots if we want truly intelligent robots around.

Read more of Gadi Amit's The New Deal blog
Browse blogs by other Expert Designers

Gadi Amit is the president of NewDealDesign LLC, a strategic design studio in San Francisco. Founded in 2000, NDD has worked with such clients as Better Place, Sling Media, Palm, Dell, Microsoft, and Fujitsu, among others, and has won more than 70 design awards. Amit is passionate about creating design that is both socially responsible and generates real world success.