Ral Arrabales is assistant lecturer in the computing department of Carlos III University in Madrid.

He specialises in
artificial consciousness and has set up a web site exclusively to consider this topic: www.Conscious-Robots.com

Although Arrabales is a robotic consciousness specialist, this interview is mainly directed to understanding human
consciousness. He refers to Edelman and Tononi who address the neurological origin of consciousness and supports
the collaboration between psychologists and neurologists to explore the issue. He characterises consciousness as a
non-enigmatic process - it is not necessary to invoke new laws of quantum physics to understand it - and he believes
that the day will come when mankind will design conscious machines.

Roger Corcho

roger.corcho@terceracultura.net

Tercera Cultura: What is consciousness? What is the best theory or model that in your opinion explains this
phenomenon? Will we be able to materialise subjective experience? What is the theory that in your opinion has
come closest to explaining this phenomenon?

Ral Arrabales: In the first place, in Spanish we distinguish between two different meanings of the word
'consciencia'. On one hand, this word refers to the immediate knowledge that one being has of him or herself, but
on the other hand, it also refers to the capacity that human beings have for judging between good and bad [as it can
be translated into English as consciousness or conscience]. In fact, this second meaning refers to the metaphorical
voice that tells us that we have done wrong.

My field of investigation focuses on the first concept, that of self-awareness. In fact, consciousness covers a
multitude of related concepts. From this point of view, we can consider consciousness as the effective integration of
various mental abilities, such as attention, feelings, the meaning of I, taking decisions, imagination, empathy, etc.

As regards the scientific study of consciousness and the models attempting to explain it, I would like to highlight two
points that I think are relevant. In the first place, I believe that we still do not have a satisfactory theory that gives a
complete explanation about what consciousness is and how it is produced. In the second place, although there are
various hypotheses trying to explain consciousness, I do not believe that their approaches are exclusive or that they
are necessarily in competition. In reality, each hypothesis approaches specific aspects of the consciousness
phenomenon. What is clear, however, is that some theories have been more successful among the scientific
community studying consciousness. Here we can distinguish between two types of theory: the psychological and the
neurological. An example of a psychological theory is Baars' Global Workspace theory. This theory uses the simile of
a theatre play to explain consciousness. This explanation is only a metaphor that helps understanding about what
consciousness is, but does not provide any indication about how it is produced in humans. By contrast, the
neurological theories are focussed on searching for existing mechanisms in the central nervous system that give rise
to consciousness. A relevant example is Edelman and Tononi's Dynamic Core hypothesis that tries to explain how the
neuronal connections of the thalamocortical loop give rise to the perception of consciousness. In general, there is
consensus among neurologists that the thalamocortical loop is key to the generation of consciousness.

I believe that the current trend is to unite high level explanations proposed by psychological theories and hypotheses
regarding low level neuronal substrata that support them. In fact, studies on consciousness always imply a
multidisciplinary effort and I don't think it would be right to cite one particular theory as giving the best explanation.
It is more likely that collaboration between technical, theoretical and empirical disciplines will turn out to give a
satisfactory answer in the long run. We should also not forget that the sciences of computation and artificial
intelligence can be especially complementary in clarifying some aspects of consciousness.

Regarding the materialisation of subjective experience, I assume you are referring to the construction of machines
with subjective experiences. Here, the difficulty lies in that the main characteristic of subjective experience is
something that is not material. From my point of view, it is a process. Therefore, the proper question to ask would
be: is it possible to artificially reproduce the process giving rise to subjective experience? Or in other words, Can we
create a non-material mind in a machine? This question is related to the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness,
which asks for an explanation in scientific terms of something that is not physical and that cannot be demonstrated
by the classical scientific method. In order to study any phenomenon in a scientific way, it is essential that it can be
observed by a third party. However, subjective experience falls outside this restriction because it is not, in itself,
composed of physical parameters. Only I can access my own subjective experience; a scientist cannot observe it
(observing an output of a brain scanner is not observing subjective experience). There is no other alternative than to
believe what I say about my subjective experience. By chance, we ourselves can act as if we were scientists of
consciousness and observe our own subjective experience by the technique of introspection. But to give a final
answer to the question of whether it is possible to reproduce non-material subjective experiences in machines, I
think that it is possible. In fact, computer programmers are accustomed to creating non-material entities starting
from conventional hardware. A programme, when it executes in a computer, becomes a process that is non-material
but executes on a substrate constructed on a core of silicon chips.

TC: It seems that the model for designing robots is the human being. The aim is for machines to substitute for
humans in many areas and to make human work more efficient. Will there be conscious robots one day?

Ral Arrabales: Obviously in the field of robotics the model to reproduce has always been the human being.
However, owing to the fact that this is a huge challenge, ambitions have been temporarily curtailed to take other
simpler animals as a model. Currently, due to the latest technical advances that have been achieved, it seems that
we are returning to the original challenge of humanoid robots, but their cognitive capacities are still at a fairly
rudimentary stage. I personally think that we will be able to construct conscious robots but it may be that the
consciousness experienced by these robots will not be like our own. In fact, I think that the artificial consciousness of
a robot should be adapted to the type of work it must undertake. Subjective experience and feelings are not
required for soldering things on an assembly line but these capacities may be crucial for a social robot helping older
people.

TC: The philosopher Vctor Gmez Pin claims that artificial intelligence is an illusion, that there is no such thing, while
neurologists, such as Adolf Tobea consider that intelligent machines are already with us. What is your point of
view? Which opinion seems to be mistaken and what would you say to expose the error?

Ral Arrabales: These days, the term Artificial Intelligence is used to designate a well established field of scientific
investigation but one which is only 50 years old. I think that the concept of intelligence should be considered as the
capacity of a being to survive and adapt to the environment in which it finds itself. I have no doubt that the property
of intelligence can exist in a machine. The level of intelligence that can be developed by different entities in
accordance with their design is something else. When we speak of intelligence and of consciousness, we often talk in
absolute terms. But I prefer to talk of qualitative levels or quantitative measures (although establishing these
measures may be complicated). So I agree that today we do not have machines with the same intelligence as a
human being, but we do have machines with some intelligence. I think that we have machines with the intelligence
of a mosquito, for example. One of the objectives of artificial intelligence is to equip machines with intelligence
similar to that of humans; for this the capacities of common sense and imagination are required. The problem is that
today we do not have machines that are capable of successfully confronting new situations in complex
environments, but we do have automatic learning implementations that are capable of learning and generalising in
some controlled environments. For example, we have artificial intelligence systems capable of automatically
detecting harmful intrusions into computer networks.

TC: What does the term computability mean? How is this notion used to reject the possibility that a machine can
become conscious? Do you think it will be necessary to resort to new laws of nature to understand consciousness
and therefore to design conscious computers?

Ral Arrabales: Some investigators equate the human brain to a computer because, just like a computer, it receives
inputs, processes them (that is, computes) and finally produces an output. But the brain produces something more
than just a physical output (behaviour). It also produces what we know as a subjective experience. The problem is
that the concept of a philosophical zombie is a priori possible from the purely scientific point of view. A zombie is a
thing that processes the inputs of the senses and produces an adapted behaviour but has no subjective experience
at all. How do we know that a person feels something when they cry out with pain? It could simply be a programmed
response in the brain, just like a robot could be programmed to say, "Ow!" when a pressure sensor is activated.
What normally happens when we see a person cry out in pain is that we infer that they feel pain in the same way
that we would feel pain in the same situation. That is, "we put ourselves in their place" and feel empathy. However,
if we see a robot cry out in pain, how do we know that it is really feeling something? In this case, we cannot establish
an analogy with ourselves because it is a completely different machine. Does this mean that it is not possible for a
robot to have subjective experience? The key lies in knowing if the subjective experience is produced by the specific
biological substrate that human beings have. Some researchers, such as Penrose and Hameroff, argue that subjective
experience is produced by quantum phenomena that take place in the microtubules present in the neurones. If this
was the case, then we could only build conscious machines using quantum computers that reproduced these types
of processes.

In fact, I think that it is not necessary to resort to quantum mechanics to understand consciousness and that we can
create conscious processes in machines by considering only the known laws of nature. I see consciousness as a
specific process in execution. For me, consciousness is not a property of matter; it is simply a process.

TC: There have been some trends, such as strong Artificial Intelligence, that have extreme points of view about
intelligence. Do you think there is any basis for such theories?

Ral Arrabales: In reality, strong AI aligns with the original objective of the subject of AI itself: to create machines
that are as intelligent and as conscious as humans. What happened is that the objectives had to be relaxed due to
the false expectations that they had created. We have realised the tremendous complexity of this task, but that does
not mean that this branch of AI has been abandoned. In fact, in the last few years we have been witnessing a
resurgence of this hard branch of AI materialised in the two lines of Artificial Consciousness and General Artificial
Intelligence. Personally I think that they are fields that deserve exploring further to determine the effective limits.
What I am sure of is that there is no basis for claiming that strong AI objectives are not reachable.

TC: Do you think that the educational potential of computers is being fully realised? What could be introduced into
schools to make learning more effective? In the past, rich families could hire tutors for their children, who received
personalised and efficient education. Can computers fulfil this role in a more democratic way?

Ral Arrabales: Of course, these days it would be a pity if the potential of computers were not used to a large extent
in education. Information technologies in general are an excellent tool for improving education. Neither teachers nor
students should reject such powerful tools, especially as they are now available at low cost, at least in the developed
world. As with all tools, the work of the teacher is to show students how to make the best use of them. In the future
we can expect teaching robots, which will present a much more natural interface for education.

TC: According to Varela, a nervous system is not an information processing system because, by definition,
information processing systems require clear inputs. Can you explain what he means?

Ral Arrabales: I would rather say that a nervous system is an analogue information processing system, where the
information received from the senses can take continuous values. By contrast, a conventional computer is based on
digital circuits where the inputs take discrete values. No matter which way we think about the term 'processing', in
both cases information is being processed and outputs are being generated.