Artificial Consciousness

Head

Abstrac t Artificial consciousness, also known as machine consciousness is one of the latest developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Robotics. A field perched on the nexus between science and philosophy, it assumes greater relevance in the light of increased realization that with the breakthrough innovations in genetics, neurosciences, and information processing, the days of A.C are imminent. Though it neural networks is nascent as a formal science, the concept of A.C is age old. It has been mentioned very in archaic times in Prometheuss men of Greek Mythology, as mechanical men in Chretien de Troyes etc in French folklore and in modern literature in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Isaac Asimovs I,Robot etc. The seminar attempts to elucidate the concepts of consciousness and to critically evaluate the various arguments which are for and against the existence or the possibility of invention or creation of A.C. It also considers the sense in adopting Turing Test as a yardstick for A.C. certain famous instances of A.C found in science fiction and a few real world examples of practical approaches to A.C are also discussed.

Content s 1
Introduction 2 Criteria for consciousness 2.1 Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.2 Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.3 Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.4 Anticipation . like .b. ehaviour .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2 . . . 2.5 Life form . . . . . . . . . . . .3 3 The Turing test as a measure of Artificial Consciousness 4 3.1 Ob jections and replies - Why isnt AC imp ossible according to Turing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2 The.Chinese Room argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 4 Practical approaches 4.1 Franklins Intelligent Distribution Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . .Haikonens ..6 4.2 Cognitive Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5 AC in Science Fiction Swarm Consciousness in Michael Crichtons Prey . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 6 6 Conclusion

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1 Introduction Artificial consciousness is a relatively new branch of computer science. But the idea
is centuries old. A.C is a very philosophical area. There has been no consensus on what consciousness is since all the definitions of consciousness are subjective and based on the human perception of consciousness. These criteria are evaluated in the second section. section contemplates on Turing test as a method to measure A.C. There are The third a number of approaches to giving birth to artificial consciousness. Top down, bottom up, neural network based etc are some of them. A number of artificially conscious entities always caught our imagination in science fiction and movies are based on that have such approaches, at least loosely. Our last sections deal with them.

2 Criteria for consciousness There have been a number of criteria laid down to define consciousness. Lets have
a glance at some of them

2.1 Sentience
Sentience is the ability to recognise stimuli. Various people have misunderstood sentience to be consciousness. Since any entity which is conscious must respond to stimuli, sentience was considered quintessential. But the argument which proves this notion wrong can very be found. Consider a thermometer. It can sense heat but it is not easily conscious. a human being. A human being cannot sense impulses such as a beam Or consider of electrons being fired at it quite simply because it has no sensory organs which are adapted such a stimulus. Asking a human being to sense electron beams is as absurd to sense as asking a barometer to measure temperature. In a world where pressure is the stimulus, a barometer will be sentient and in a world where heat is a stimulus, thermometer will be sentient by this argument. So sentience becomes a useless criterion for consciousness.

2.2 Personality
Personality is regarded as yet another criterion for consciousness. However, there is an argument in behavioural science that personality develops when you interact with other In short there will be no personality and need thereof when we consider a people. world in which there are no entities to interact with.

2.3 Learning
It has been argued for a long time that computers are incapable of learning. But, if we consider the fact that computers are able to perform the things which we are able to, they are instructed, we can presume that computers are capable of learning. If once we consider the fact that a human child learns through a lot of sources other than reading, his five senses, the argument that computers dont learn owes its reason to such as the lack of sensory organs. From a purely physical point of view, the human brain is mere a huge assembly of neurons and no computer has been able to match its sheer complexity. Whether computers can learn or not is a question which can be answered only when advances in neural networks reach a stage when the complexity of human brain can be achieved through millions and even gazillions of processors. It might be vastly easier to make an initially unconscious infant robot and let it grow up into consciousness, just like human beings do. Giving a computer the sensory perceptions which a human child has, becomes the daunting then task

2.4 Anticipation
Anticipation is a characteristic that can make a machine appear conscious. An artificially machine must be able to anticipate evens correctly in order to be ready conscious to respond to them when they occur. If this is the yardstick, we will be forced to conclude time systems such as ATCs, thermostats etc are artificially conscious. But that real again we come to the old argument that they are artificially conscious in a particular realm.an ATC will be artificially conscious in an airport and a thermostat in a Thus room the temperatures are in a state of ux. This argument will also be vitiated where by fact that human beings develop the ability to predict through learning which the comesexperience. To further prove it, we can draw insights from Deep Blue, the from computer which defeated Gary Kasparov in a chess tournament. The fact that Deep Blue was not artificially conscious proves that anticipation fails as a criterion for consciousness.

2.5 Life form like behaviour

This is a good criterion for artificial consciousness. Life forms are characterised by survival instinct and reproduction. They defend themselves and ensure the survival of their kind. behaviour is shown by computer viruses. But they are not conscious. So this This criterion also fails. All through this discussion we notice one thing. We are prejudiced in defining AnyA.C. criterion which we lay down is in uenced by the existence of similar traits in humans. This essentially brings us to the conclusion that we are defining consciousness in a realm perceivable by humans. Why cant we deem a thermostat conscious? Why dont we deem ourselves non conscious in the fourth dimension since very few people are conscious about the existence of time as a dimension? All our definitions of consciousness then reduce to definitions of humandown like.

The Turing test is a test to gauge a machines ability to perform human like conversation.primarily used to test AI, it has also been proposed to test the existence Though it is of It was inspired by a game called party game. In the game, a man and woman AC. go separate rooms, and guests try to tell them apart by writing a series of into questions the typewritten answers sent back. In this game, both man and woman and reading tryconvince the readers that he or she is the woman. In a Turing test, a human to judge in conversation with two agents, one a human and one a machine in engages separateThe conversation takes place in Natural Language. If the judge is not able to rooms. tell which is human and which is machine, the machine is said to pass the test.

3 The Turing test as a measure of Artificial Consciousnes s

3.1 Objections and replies - Why isnt AC impossible according to Turing?

a) Theological objection: This says that thinking is a function of mans immortal soul therefore a machine could not think. Turing replies by saying that God can grant and a achine m a soul. Heads in the Sand Objection: The consequences of machines thinking would b) too be dreadful. Let us hop and believe that they cannot do so. This objection has hardly any substance. c) Mathematical Objections: This is based on several mathematical theorems such as Gdels incompleteness theorem and shows that there are limits to what questions the computer can answer. ciently fast machine with su ciently large memory can be programmed d) A su with enough number of answers to questions. It can also be filled with a few vague large answers to what is not in the memory. This would emulate the humans only in a mechanical way. Besides, psychologists say that humans have limited vocabulary and hence a limited number of retorts. But again, this does prove that computers cannot be human-like. That not mean computers cannot be does conscious. e) Data processing objection: Machines process data bit by bit. Humans do it holistically. So a machine cannot be conscious. Its just aware of bits and pieces of data. But break it down to a very biological point of view, humans process data by if we individual chemical impulses. So it is possible for a computer to be conscious even if runs on binary signals. electrical f) Lady Lovelace objection: It says that human beings are capable of learning and Ma- are not. This is again senseless because the argument was put forward at a chines time computer science was in infancy and computers were really primitive things. when Modern research is taking computers to the point where they learn. g) Argument from consciousness: This argument, suggested by Professor Je erson Lister a machine cannot be deemed equivalent to human until it writes a sonnet says that or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, other than fall of symbols by chance. h) Informality behaviour: This says that any system governed by laws will be predictable not truly intelligent. Turings retort is that this is confusing laws of and therefore behaviour with general rules of conduct. Machine behaviour can be very random on a broad This is further corroborated by emergent behaviour, as in swarm scale. consciousness and also by research on recursive algorithms which proved that deterministic systems are capable of totally unpredictable behaviour. i) Extra sensory perception: Turing seems to suggest that there is evidence for extra sen- perception. However he feels that conditions could be created in which this sory would ect the test and so may be not a disregarded. the Turing test seems reasonable, it may not indicate that a machine Though has

consciousness, or it has intentionality. Perhaps intelligence and consciousness are such neither implies the other. One of the famous objections to the viability of that Turing a test for A.C is the Chinese Room Test as argument.

3.2 The Chinese Room argument

The Chinese room argument is a thought experiment designed by John Searle as a counterargument to claims made by strong artificial intelligence. Its basis is Searles contention (grammar) is not tantamount to semantics (meaning). Chinese Room that syntax argu- was put forward in the paper Minds, brains and programs published in 1980. ment Ever it has been a mainstay of debate over the possibility of what Searle called strong since, artificial intelligence. Strong artificial intelligence leads to the conclusion that appropriately computer isnt simply a simulation or model of a mind; it actually programmed would as a mind and it can understand, has cognitive states, and can think. count Chinese room argument defies this as follows. Suppose that, in future a computer is constructed which behaves as if it understands Chinese. In other words, the computer takes Chinese as input, consults a large look-up table (as all computers can be described characters as doing), and then produces other Chinese characters as output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly that it easily passes the Turing test and con- a human Chinese speaker that it is a Chinese speaker. The conclusion vinces proponents would like to draw is that the computer understands Chinese, just as of strong AI the person does. Now, suppose that a person is sitting inside the computer. In other words, a small room in which he receives Chinese characters, looks them up on lookhe is in up table, and returns the Chinese characters that are indicated by the table. Obviously the person sitting inside the room doesnt understand a word of Chinese. Furthermore, his of understanding goes to show, he argues, that computers dont understand lack Chinesebecause they are in the same situation as he is. They are mindless either, manipulators as he is - and they dont understand what theyre saying, just as of symbols, just he doesnt. 1984 Searle produced a more formal version of the argument of which the Chinese Room forms a part. He listed four premises: Brains 1. cause minds. is not su cient for 2. Syntax semantics. 3. Computer programs are entirely defined by their formal, or syntactical, structure. have mental contents; specifically, they have semantic 4. Minds contents. The second premise is supposedly supported by the Chinese Room argument, since Searle that the room follows only formal syntactical rules, and does not holds understand Chinese. Searle posits that these lead directly to four conclusions: 1. No computer program by itself is su cient to give a system a mind. Programs, in short, are not minds, and they are not by themselves su cient for having minds. way that brain functions cause minds cannot be solely in virtue of 2. The running a program. computer 3. Anything else that caused minds would have to have causal powers at least equivalent of the to those brain. any artifact that we might build which had mental states equivalent to 4. For human states, the implementation of a computer program would not by itself be su mental cient. the artifact would have to have powers of the human Rather brain.

4.1 Franklins Intelligent Distribution Agent

Intelligent Distribution Agent or IDA is a software implementation of what is known as Global Workspace Theory (GWT). GWT was propounded by Bernard Baar. Since defined that an autonomous agent possesses functional consciousness when Franklin it capable of several functions f consciousness as defined by GWT, IDA is is functionally definition. Its task is to negotiate new assignments for US Naval conscious by sailors after they end a tour of duty, by matching each individuals skills and preferences withnavys requirements. It interacts with the sailors through Natural language the email dialogue. It consists of .25 million lines of Java code. It relies heavily on code lets which are special purpose, relatively independent, mini agents typically implemented as a small piece of code running as a separate thread. The architectural approach here was top down.

4 Practical approaches

4.2 Haikonens Cognitive Architecture

This di ers from Franklins IDA in the sense that IDA was a top down architecture. as saying that the final properties of the system were decided by Thats as good the designer and individual parts were made to add to this requirements. But thats like us specifying something and not the machine creating anything new. Haikonens approach up. A special cognitive architecture to reproduce the intricacies such was bottom as perception, inner imagery, inner speech, pain, higher level functions by the power of the elementary processing units, the artificial neurons, without algorithms or programs. When implemented with su cient complexity, this system will develop consciousness, which Haikonen considers to be a style and way of operation, characterized by distributed signal representation, perception process, cross modality reporting and availability for retrospection. This view that AC will spontaneously emerge in autonomous agents that a suitable neuro-inspired architecture of complexity is shared by have many.

5.1 Swarm Consciousness in Michael Crichtons Prey

This is worth mentioning as idea is as real as it can get. In the novel Prey, an intelligent swarm capable of doing a variety of activities is made. Each unit in the swarm in a small hovering y made out of a nano assembly line. An E-Coli bacteria lives on this. The individual units are also given a micro solar cell and a small memory. The individual units interact with each other and can orient themselves. One of the various applicationsbe injected into the bloodstream where they arrange themselves in the is that can shape of a camera to get pictures. They can also be used for reconnaissance since they can be down. The whole idea goes berserk when the swarm develops its own shot consciousness, nano assembly, makes many more swarms and attack humans. Though takes over the this an impossibility, emergent behaviour and swarm consciousness can never be seems ruled milestones in the development of out as A.C.

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Science

6 Conclusion The word consciousness is very abstract. The definition word consciousness is loose
and diverse. This deters the identification of consciousness. There has been no accord regarding the yardstick for identifying consciousness. It can also be observed that we are really far from making human like consciousness. Human like consciousness, in turn is amalgamation of a variety of cognitive functions such as inner speech, modeling, an anthropomorphic holistic thinking etc aided by a number of sensory perceptions. It is as much a product of experience learning and emotions as it is of analytical reasoning and numerical logic. Emergent behavior resulting from neuro-inspired architectures in which the individual units interact and form the final properties seem to be the most possible and realistic approach to consciousness. With the advances in neural networks and AI days of Artificially Conscious machines need not be the far

Reference s www.wikipedia.com [1]

argument, Turing test [2] www.ieeeexplore.org

keyword: Artificial Consciousness, Chinese room

[3] Chalmers, David (1996), The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press [4] Michael Crichton, Prey