They were merely synthetic soldiers and slaves that needed to be 'retired'. But just as we feel a need to understand and control a human secretary or administrative assistant, we also feel a need to be in control of the computational systems that are acting on our behalf. If the end user can relate to the software agent, and understand its actions, they will feel more in control of the agent and thus more comfortable with letting it handle personal tasks. Bates suggests that there are three guidelines to follow for proper portrayal of emotion in a non-animate agent. This is not as simple as it may sound.
Humans have a very wide range of emotions.
For example, many self-help books have long lists of emotions to help the reader identify which they are feeling. Emotions are not something easily defined and categorized, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Somehow, this labeling seems to have taken on a life of its own, so that it has become not scientifically respectable even to try to understand how they work. There are faces for . . . The point here is that the temporal relation between events and the display of emotion is what helps other people understand what emotion is being displayed.