Hawking: A.I. 'worst event in the history of civilization'

It strikes me that supposing that emotions are intrinsically tied to chemicals is similar to the argument that consciousness depends on wet living matter, and that inorganic thinking machines aren't capable of consciousness.  There doesn't seem to be a consensus on the latter point, so I think until we can observe more advanced machine intelligence it is premature to make statements about how much a role chemicals play in emotions.  Chemicals certainly affect emotional states in our brains, since chemicals play such an important role in their basic machinery, but to separate emotional states from other mental functions on the basis of chemistry seems very unfounded to me at this point.