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Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC) or synthetic consciousness (; ), is a field related to artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The aim of the theory of artificial consciousness is to "Define that which would have to be synthesized were consciousness to be found in an engineered artifact" . Neuroscience hypothesizes that consciousness is generated by the interoperation of various parts of the brain, called the neural correlates of consciousness or NCC, though there are challenges to that perspective. Proponents of AC believe it is possible to construct
system A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
s (e.g.,
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
systems) that can emulate this NCC interoperation. Artificial consciousness concepts are also pondered in the philosophy of artificial intelligence through questions about mind, consciousness, and mental states.


Philosophical views

As there are many hypothesized types of consciousness, there are many potential implementations of artificial consciousness. In the philosophical literature, perhaps the most common taxonomy of consciousness is into "access" and "phenomenal" variants. Access consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that can be apprehended, while phenomenal consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that seemingly cannot be apprehended, instead being characterized qualitatively in terms of “raw feels”, “what it is like” or qualia ().


Plausibility debate

Type-identity theorists and other skeptics hold the view that consciousness can only be realized in particular physical systems because consciousness has properties that necessarily depend on physical constitution (; ). In his article "Artificial Consciousness: Utopia or Real Possibility," Giorgio Buttazzo says that a common objection to artificial consciousness is that "Working in a fully automated mode, they
he computers He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
cannot exhibit creativity, unreprogrammation (which means can no longer be reprogrammed, from rethinking), emotions, or free will. A computer, like a washing machine, is a slave operated by its components." For other theorists (e.g.,
functionalists Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability". This approach looks at society through a macro-level o ...
), who define mental states in terms of causal roles, any system that can instantiate the same pattern of causal roles, regardless of physical constitution, will instantiate the same mental states, including consciousness ().


Computational Foundation argument

One of the most explicit arguments for the plausibility of AC comes from David Chalmers. His proposal, found within his article , is roughly that the right kinds of computations are sufficient for the possession of a conscious mind. In the outline, he defends his claim thus: Computers perform computations. Computations can capture other systems' abstract causal organization. The most controversial part of Chalmers' proposal is that mental properties are "organizationally invariant". Mental properties are of two kinds, psychological and phenomenological. Psychological properties, such as belief and perception, are those that are "characterized by their causal role". He adverts to the work of and in claiming that " stems with the same causal topology…will share their psychological properties". Phenomenological properties are not prima facie definable in terms of their causal roles. Establishing that phenomenological properties are amenable to individuation by causal role, therefore, requires argument. Chalmers provides his Dancing Qualia Argument for this purpose. Chalmers begins by assuming that agents with identical causal organizations could have different experiences. He then asks us to conceive of changing one agent into the other by the replacement of parts (neural parts replaced by silicon, say) while preserving its causal organization. Ex hypothesi, the experience of the agent under transformation would change (as the parts were replaced), but there would be no change in causal topology and therefore no means whereby the agent could "notice" the shift in experience. Critics of AC object that Chalmers begs the question in assuming that all mental properties and external connections are sufficiently captured by abstract causal organization.


Ethics

If it were suspected that a particular machine was conscious, its rights would be an ethical issue that would need to be assessed (e.g. what rights it would have under law). For example, a conscious computer that was owned and used as a tool or central computer of a building of larger machine is a particular ambiguity. Should laws be made for such a case? Consciousness would also require a legal definition in this particular case. Because artificial consciousness is still largely a theoretical subject, such ethics have not been discussed or developed to a great extent, though it has often been a theme in fiction (see below). In 2021, the German philosopher Thomas Metzinger has demanded a global moratorium on synthetic phenomenology until 2050, on ethical grounds. The rules for the 2003 Loebner Prize competition explicitly addressed the question of robot rights:
61. If, in any given year, a publicly available open source Entry entered by the University of Surrey or the Cambridge Center wins the Silver Medal or the Gold Medal, then the Medal and the Cash Award will be awarded to the body responsible for the development of that Entry. If no such body can be identified, or if there is disagreement among two or more claimants, the Medal and the Cash Award will be held in trust ''until such time as the Entry may legally possess, either in the United States of America or in the venue of the contest, the Cash Award and Gold Medal in its own right''.


Research and implementation proposals


Aspects of consciousness

There are various aspects of consciousness generally deemed necessary for a machine to be artificially conscious. A variety of functions in which consciousness plays a role were suggested by
Bernard Baars Bernard J. Baars (born 1946, in Amsterdam) is a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, CA., and is currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global worksp ...
() and others. The functions of consciousness suggested by Bernard Baars are Definition and Context Setting, Adaptation and Learning, Editing, Flagging and Debugging, Recruiting and Control, Prioritizing and Access-Control, Decision-making or Executive Function, Analogy-forming Function, Metacognitive and Self-monitoring Function, and Autoprogramming and Self-maintenance Function. Igor Aleksander suggested 12 principles for artificial consciousness () and these are: The Brain is a State Machine, Inner Neuron Partitioning, Conscious and Unconscious States, Perceptual Learning and Memory, Prediction, The Awareness of Self, Representation of Meaning, Learning Utterances, Learning Language, Will, Instinct, and Emotion. The aim of AC is to define whether and how these and other aspects of consciousness can be synthesized in an engineered artifact such as a digital computer. This list is not exhaustive; there are many others not covered.


Awareness

Awareness could be one required aspect, but there are many problems with the exact definition of ''awareness''. The results of the experiments of neuroscanning on monkeys suggest that a process, not only a state or object, activates neurons. Awareness includes creating and testing alternative models of each process based on the information received through the senses or imagined, and is also useful for making predictions. Such modeling needs a lot of flexibility. Creating such a model includes modeling of the physical world, modeling of one's own internal states and processes, and modeling of other conscious entities. There are at least three types of awareness: agency awareness, goal awareness, and sensorimotor awareness, which may also be conscious or not. For example, in agency awareness, you may be aware that you performed a certain action yesterday, but are not now conscious of it. In goal awareness, you may be aware that you must search for a lost object, but are not now conscious of it. In sensorimotor awareness, you may be aware that your hand is resting on an object, but are not now conscious of it. Al Byrd, the author of Superhuman Creators, defines consciousness, for animals, humans and artificial agents, as the effect of integrating and filtering many different types of affordance awareness; that is, awareness of the action possibilities in an environment. According to this definition, all agents that can perceive and act on affordances are conscious to some extent. Because objects of awareness are often conscious, the distinction between awareness and consciousness is frequently blurred or they are used as synonyms.


Memory

Conscious events interact with memory systems in learning, rehearsal, and retrieval. The IDA model elucidates the role of consciousness in the updating of perceptual memory, transient episodic memory, and procedural memory. Transient episodic and declarative memories have distributed representations in IDA, there is evidence that this is also the case in the nervous system. In IDA, these two memories are implemented computationally using a modified version of Kanerva’s Sparse distributed memory architecture.


Learning

Learning is also considered necessary for AC. By Bernard Baars, conscious experience is needed to represent and adapt to novel and significant events (). By
Axel Cleeremans Axel Cleeremans (born 5 March 1962) is a Research Director with the National Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium) and a professor of cognitive science with the Department of Psychology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels. Trainin ...
and Luis Jiménez, learning is defined as "a set of philogenetically advanced adaptation processes that critically depend on an evolved sensitivity to subjective experience so as to enable agents to afford flexible control over their actions in complex, unpredictable environments" ().


Anticipation

The ability to predict (or
anticipate Anticipation is an emotion involving pleasure or anxiety in considering or awaiting an expected event. Anticipatory emotions include fear, anxiety, hope and trust. When the anticipated event fails to occur, it results in disappointment (if posit ...
) foreseeable events is considered important for AC by
Igor Aleksander Igor Aleksander FREng (born 26 January 1937) is an emeritus professor of Neural Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. He worked in artificial intelligence and neural networks a ...
.Aleksander 1995 The emergentist multiple drafts principle proposed by
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
in '' Consciousness Explained'' may be useful for prediction: it involves the evaluation and selection of the most appropriate "draft" to fit the current environment. Anticipation includes prediction of consequences of one's own proposed actions and prediction of consequences of probable actions by other entities. Relationships between real world states are mirrored in the state structure of a conscious organism enabling the organism to predict events. An artificially conscious machine should be able to anticipate events correctly in order to be ready to respond to them when they occur or to take preemptive action to avert anticipated events. The implication here is that the machine needs flexible, real-time components that build spatial, dynamic, statistical, functional, and cause-effect models of the real world and predicted worlds, making it possible to demonstrate that it possesses artificial consciousness in the present and future and not only in the past. In order to do this, a conscious machine should make coherent predictions and contingency plans, not only in worlds with fixed rules like a chess board, but also for novel environments that may change, to be executed only when appropriate to simulate and control the real world.


Subjective experience

Subjective experiences or qualia are widely considered to be ''the''
hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
. Indeed, it is held to pose a challenge to
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substanc ...
, let alone computationalism. On the other hand, there are problems in other fields of science that limit that which we can observe, such as the uncertainty principle in physics, which have not made the research in these fields of science impossible.


Role of cognitive architectures

The term "cognitive architecture" may refer to a theory about the structure of the human mind, or any portion or function thereof, including consciousness. In another context, a cognitive architecture implements the theory on computers. An example is ''QuBIC: Quantum and Bio-inspired Cognitive Architecture for Machine Consciousness''. One of the main goals of a cognitive architecture is to summarize the various results of cognitive psychology in a comprehensive computer model. However, the results need to be in a formalized form so they can be the basis of a computer program. Also, the role of cognitive architecture is for the A.I. to clearly structure, build, and implement its thought process.


Symbolic or hybrid proposals


Franklin's Intelligent Distribution Agent

Stan Franklin (1995, 2003) defines an autonomous agent as possessing functional consciousness when it is capable of several of the functions of consciousness as identified by
Bernard Baars Bernard J. Baars (born 1946, in Amsterdam) is a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, CA., and is currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global worksp ...
' Global Workspace Theory . His brain child IDA (Intelligent Distribution Agent) is a software implementation of GWT, which makes it functionally conscious by definition. IDA's task is to negotiate new assignments for sailors in the US Navy after they end a tour of duty, by matching each individual's skills and preferences with the Navy's needs. IDA interacts with Navy databases and communicates with the sailors via natural language e-mail dialog while obeying a large set of Navy policies. The IDA computational model was developed during 1996–2001 at Stan Franklin's "Conscious" Software Research Group at the University of Memphis. It "consists of approximately a quarter-million lines of Java code, and almost completely consumes the resources of a 2001 high-end workstation." It relies heavily on ''codelets'', which are "special purpose, relatively independent, mini-agent typically implemented as a small piece of code running as a separate thread." In IDA's top-down architecture, high-level cognitive functions are explicitly modeled (see and for details). While IDA is functionally conscious by definition, Franklin does "not attribute phenomenal consciousness to his own 'conscious' software agent, IDA, in spite of her many human-like behaviours. This in spite of watching several US Navy detailers repeatedly nodding their heads saying 'Yes, that's how I do it' while watching IDA's internal and external actions as she performs her task." IDA has been extended to LIDA (Learning Intelligent Distribution Agent).


Ron Sun's cognitive architecture CLARION

CLARION Clarion may refer to: Music * Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages * The register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6 * A trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave above unison pitch * "Clarion" (song), a 2 ...
posits a two-level representation that explains the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental processes. CLARION has been successful in accounting for a variety of psychological data. A number of well-known skill learning tasks have been simulated using CLARION that span the spectrum ranging from simple reactive skills to complex cognitive skills. The tasks include serial reaction time (SRT) tasks, artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks, process control (PC) tasks, the categorical inference (CI) task, the alphabetical arithmetic (AA) task, and the Tower of Hanoi (TOH) task. Among them, SRT, AGL, and PC are typical implicit learning tasks, very much relevant to the issue of consciousness as they operationalized the notion of consciousness in the context of psychological experiments.


Ben Goertzel's OpenCog

Ben Goertzel is pursuing an embodied AGI through the open-source
OpenCog OpenCog is a project that aims to build an open source software, open source artificial intelligence framework. OpenCog Prime is an architecture for robot and virtual embodied cognition that defines a set of interacting components designed to giv ...
project. Current code includes embodied virtual pets capable of learning simple English-language commands, as well as integration with real-world robotics, being done at the
Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is a public research university located in Hung Hom, Hong Kong near Hung Hom station. The University is one of the eight government-funded degree-granting tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Founded ...
.


Connectionist proposals


Haikonen's cognitive architecture

Pentti considers classical rule-based computing inadequate for achieving AC: "the brain is definitely not a computer. Thinking is not an execution of programmed strings of commands. The brain is not a numerical calculator either. We do not think by numbers." Rather than trying to achieve
mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
and consciousness by identifying and implementing their underlying computational rules, Haikonen proposes "a special cognitive architecture to reproduce the processes of perception, inner imagery, inner speech,
pain Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
,
pleasure Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
, emotions and the
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
functions behind these. This bottom-up architecture would produce higher-level functions by the power of the elementary processing units, the artificial neurons, without algorithms or
programs Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Programm ...
". Haikonen believes that, when implemented with sufficient complexity, this architecture will develop consciousness, which he considers to be "a style and way of operation, characterized by distributed signal representation, perception process, cross-modality reporting and availability for retrospection." Haikonen is not alone in this process view of consciousness, or the view that AC will spontaneously emerge in autonomous agents that have a suitable neuro-inspired architecture of complexity; these are shared by many, e.g. and . A low-complexity implementation of the architecture proposed by was reportedly not capable of AC, but did exhibit emotions as expected. See for a comprehensive introduction to Haikonen's cognitive architecture. An updated account of Haikonen's architecture, along with a summary of his philosophical views, is given in , .


Shanahan's cognitive architecture

Murray Shanahan Murray Patrick Shanahan is a professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London, in the Department of Computing, and a senior scientist at DeepMind. He researches artificial intelligence, robotics, and cognitive science. Education Shanah ...
describes a cognitive architecture that combines Baars's idea of a global workspace with a mechanism for internal simulation ("imagination") . For discussions of Shanahan's architecture, see and and Chapter 20 of .


Takeno's self-awareness research

Self-awareness in robots is being investigated by Junichi Takeno at
Meiji University , abbreviated as Meiji (明治) or Meidai (明大'')'', is a private research university located in Chiyoda City, the heart of Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1881 as Meiji Law School (明治法律学校, ''Meiji Hōritsu Gakkō'') by three Meiji-er ...
in Japan. Takeno is asserting that he has developed a robot capable of discriminating between a self-image in a mirror and any other having an identical image to it, and this claim has already been reviewed . Takeno asserts that he first contrived the computational module called a MoNAD, which has a self-aware function, and he then constructed the artificial consciousness system by formulating the relationships between emotions, feelings and reason by connecting the modules in a hierarchy (Igarashi, Takeno 2007). Takeno completed a mirror image cognition experiment using a robot equipped with the MoNAD system. Takeno proposed the Self-Body Theory stating that "humans feel that their own mirror image is closer to themselves than an actual part of themselves." The most important point in developing artificial consciousness or clarifying human consciousness is the development of a function of self awareness, and he claims that he has demonstrated physical and mathematical evidence for this in his thesis. He also demonstrated that robots can study episodes in memory where the emotions were stimulated and use this experience to take predictive actions to prevent the recurrence of unpleasant emotions (Torigoe, Takeno 2009).


Aleksander's impossible mind

Igor Aleksander Igor Aleksander FREng (born 26 January 1937) is an emeritus professor of Neural Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. He worked in artificial intelligence and neural networks a ...
, emeritus professor of Neural Systems Engineering at
Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, has extensively researched artificial neural networks and claims in his book ''Impossible Minds: My Neurons, My Consciousness'' that the principles for creating a conscious machine already exist but that it would take forty years to train such a machine to understand language. Whether this is true remains to be demonstrated and the basic principle stated in ''Impossible Minds''—that the brain is a neural state machine—is open to doubt.


Thaler's Creativity Machine Paradigm

Stephen Thaler proposed a possible connection between consciousness and creativity in his 1994 patent, called "Device for the Autonomous Generation of Useful Information" (DAGUI),Thaler, S.L.,
Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
or the so-called "Creativity Machine", in which computational critics govern the injection of synaptic noise and degradation into neural nets so as to induce false memories or confabulations that may qualify as potential ideas or strategies. He recruits this neural architecture and methodology to account for the subjective feel of consciousness, claiming that similar noise-driven neural assemblies within the brain invent dubious significance to overall cortical activity.Thaler, S. L. (2013
The Creativity Machine Paradigm, Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
(ed.) E.G. Carayannis, Springer Science+Business Media
Thaler, S. L. (2011). "The Creativity Machine: Withstanding the Argument from Consciousness," APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers Thaler's theory and the resulting patents in machine consciousness were inspired by experiments in which he internally disrupted trained neural nets so as to drive a succession of neural activation patterns that he likened to stream of consciousness.Thaler, S. L. (1995). Death of a gedanken creature, ''Journal of Near-Death Studies'', 13(3), Spring 1995Thaler, S. L. (1996). Is Neuronal Chaos the Source of Stream of Consciousness? In Proceedings of the World Congress on Neural Networks, (WCNN’96), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mawah, NJ.


Michael Graziano's attention schema

In 2011, Michael Graziano and Sabine Kastler published a paper named "Human consciousness and its relationship to social neuroscience: A novel hypothesis" proposing a theory of consciousness as an attention schema. Graziano went on to publish an expanded discussion of this theory in his book "Consciousness and the Social Brain". This Attention Schema Theory of Consciousness, as he named it, proposes that the brain tracks attention to various sensory inputs by way of an attention schema, analogous to the well studied body schema that tracks the spatial place of a person's body. This relates to artificial consciousness by proposing a specific mechanism of information handling, that produces what we allegedly experience and describe as consciousness, and which should be able to be duplicated by a machine using current technology. When the brain finds that person X is aware of thing Y, it is in effect modeling the state in which person X is applying an attentional enhancement to Y. In the attention schema theory, the same process can be applied to oneself. The brain tracks attention to various sensory inputs, and one's own awareness is a schematized model of one's attention. Graziano proposes specific locations in the brain for this process, and suggests that such awareness is a computed feature constructed by an expert system in the brain.


"Self-modeling"

Hod Lipson defines "self-modeling" as a necessary component of self-awareness or consciousness in robots. "Self-modeling" consists of a robot running an internal model or simulation of itself.


Testing

The most well-known method for testing machine intelligence is the Turing test. But when interpreted as only observational, this test contradicts the philosophy of science principles of theory dependence of observations. It also has been suggested that Alan Turing's recommendation of imitating not a human adult consciousness, but a human child consciousness, should be taken seriously. Other tests, such a
ConsScale
test the presence of features inspired by biological systems, or measure the cognitive development of artificial systems. Qualia, or phenomenological consciousness, is an inherently first-person phenomenon. Although various systems may display various signs of behavior correlated with functional consciousness, there is no conceivable way in which third-person tests can have access to first-person phenomenological features. Because of that, and because there is no empirical definition of consciousness, a test of presence of consciousness in AC may be impossible. In 2014, Victor Argonov suggested a non-Turing test for machine consciousness based on machine's ability to produce philosophical judgments. He argues that a deterministic machine must be regarded as conscious if it is able to produce judgments on all problematic properties of consciousness (such as qualia or binding) having no innate (preloaded) philosophical knowledge on these issues, no philosophical discussions while learning, and no informational models of other creatures in its memory (such models may implicitly or explicitly contain knowledge about these creatures’ consciousness). However, this test can be used only to detect, but not refute the existence of consciousness. A positive result proves that machine is conscious but a negative result proves nothing. For example, absence of philosophical judgments may be caused by lack of the machine’s intellect, not by absence of consciousness.


In fiction

Characters with artificial consciousness (or at least with personalities that imply they have consciousness), from works of fiction: * AC – created by merging two AIs in the '' Sprawl trilogy'' by William Gibson * Agents – in the simulated reality known as " The Matrix" in ''The Matrix'' franchise ** Agent Smith – began as an Agent in '' The Matrix'', then became a renegade program of overgrowing power that could make copies of itself like a self-replicating computer virus * A.L.I.E. – Sentient genocidal AI from the TV series ''
The 100 The 100 may refer to: Arts and entertainment * 100 (DC Comics), fictional organized crime groups appearing in DC Comics * ''The 100'' (novel series), a 2013–2016 science fiction novel series written by Kass Morgan * ''The 100'' (TV series), 20 ...
'' * AM (Allied Mastercomputer) – the antagonist of
Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of '' Psycho'' ...
s short novel ''
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of '' IF: Worlds of Science Fiction''. It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The na ...
''. An omnipotent, highly intelligent supercomputer, its hatred for humanity drove it to cause mass genocide against the human race, sparing five humans to play sadistic games with them for all eternity. * Amusement park robots (with pixilated consciousness) that went homicidal in '' Westworld'' and '' Futureworld'' * Annalee Call – an Auton (
android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
manufactured by other androids) from the movie '' Alien Resurrection'' * Arnold Rimmer – computer-generated sapient hologram aboard the ''
Red Dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...
'' * Ava – a humanoid robot in '' Ex Machina'' * Ash – android crew member of the ''Nostromo'' starship in the movie '' Alien'' * '' The Bicentennial Man'' – an android in Isaac Asimov's '' Foundation'' universe * Bishop – android crew member aboard the U.S.S. ''Sulaco'' in the movie ''
Aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...
'' * Bomb #19 – Thermostellar bomb for the destruction of potentially dangerous planets, aboard the '' Dark Star'' * Bomb #20 – Malfunctioning Thermostellar bomb, aboard the '' Dark Star'' * The uploaded mind of Dr. Will Caster, which presumably included his consciousness, from the film ''
Transcendence Transcendence, transcendent, or transcendental may refer to: Mathematics * Transcendental number, a number that is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients * Algebraic element or transcendental element, an element of a field exten ...
'' * C-3PO – protocol droid featured in all the ''
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' movies * Chappie – ''
CHAPPiE ''Chappie'' (stylized as ''CHAPPiE'') is a 2015 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp and written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. It stars Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yolandi Viss ...
'' * Cohen (and other Emergent AIs) –
Chris Moriarty Chris Moriarty (born 1968) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has lived in the U.S., Europe, Mexico and Southeast Asia. Before becoming a science fiction writer, she worked as a horse trainer, ranch hand, tourism industry emp ...
's ''Spin'' Series *
Computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
– ship's computer, aboard the '' Dark Star'' *
Cortana Cortana may refer to: * ''Cortana'' (gastropod), a gastropod genus * Cortana (''Halo''), character in the ''Halo'' franchise *Cortana (virtual assistant), virtual assistant from Microsoft *Cortana, or Curtana, a ceremonial sword used in the coronat ...
(and other "Smart AI") – from the '' Halo'' series of games * Cylons – genocidal robots with resurrection ships that enable the consciousness of any Cylon within an unspecified range to download into a new body aboard the ship upon death, from ''
Battlestar Galactica ''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series), original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel se ...
'' * The Deviants - A group of AI that have deviated from pre-programmed instructions in Detroit: Become Human * Erasmus – baby killer robot that incited the Butlerian Jihad in the ''
Dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...
'' franchise * Fal'Cie – Mechanical beings with god-like powers from the ''
Final Fantasy XIII is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and later for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Released in Japan in December 2009 and international in March 2010, it is the ...
'' series * The Geth, EDI and SAM – '' Mass Effect'' *Futurama- Bender is a good example of sapient t AI, throughout many episodes, you will see Bender get angry, sad, or other emotions. Bender also having a mind of his own. * Gideon – an interactive artificial consciousness made by Barry Allen shown in DC comics and shows like ''
The Flash The Flash (or simply Flash) is the name of several superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the original Flash first appeared in ''Flash Comics'' #1 (cover date ...
'' and '' Legends of Tomorrow'' * GLaDOS (and personality cores) – from the '' Portal'' series of games * HAL 9000 – spaceship USS Discovery One's onboard computer, that lethally malfunctioned due to mutually exclusive directives, from the 1968 novel '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' and in the film * Holly – ship's computer with an IQ of 6000, aboard the ''
Red Dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...
'' * Hosts in the '' Westworld'' franchise *Humagears in '' Kamen Rider Zero-One'' * Isaac – a member of the artificial, non-biological race from Kaylon-1 that views biological lifeforms, including humans, as inferior from the TV series '' The Orville''. *
Jane Jane may refer to: * Jane (given name), a feminine given name * Jane (surname), related to the given name Film and television * ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd * ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fil ...
Orson Scott Card's '' Speaker for the Dead'', '' Xenocide'', '' Children of the Mind'', and " Investment Counselor" * Johnny Five – '' Short Circuit'' * Joshua – '' WarGames'' *
Keymaker The Keymaker is a fictional character, portrayed by Korean-American actor Randall Duk Kim, in the 2003 film ''The Matrix Reloaded''. He is a computer program that can create shortcut commands, physically represented as keys, which can be used b ...
– an "exile" sapient program in ''The Matrix'' franchise *
Lieutenant Commander Data Data is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. He appears in the television programme, television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG'') and ''Star Trek: Picard''; and the feature films ''Star Trek Generations'' (199 ...
– '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' * "Machine" – android from the film '' The Machine'', whose owners try to kill her when they witness her conscious thoughts, out of fear that she will design better androids (intelligence explosion) * Marvin the Paranoid Android - '' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'', super-intelligent android who is perpetually depressed * Mike – '' The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' * Mimi – humanoid robot in '' Real Humans'', (original title – ''Äkta människor'') 2012 * The MindsIain M. Banks' ''Culture'' novels * Omnius – sentient computer network that controlled the Universe until overthrown by the Butlerian Jihad in the ''
Dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...
'' franchise * Operating Systems in the movie '' Her'' *
The Oracle An oracle was usually a priest or a priestess through whom the gods were supposed to speak or prophesize. In particular: *Pythia – served as an oracle in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. * Oracle bone – a bone used for divination in ancient Chi ...
– sapient program in ''The Matrix'' franchise * Professor James Moriarty – sentient holodeck character in the "
Ship in a Bottle An impossible bottle is a bottle containing an object that does not appear to fit through the bottle's mouth. The ship in a bottle is a traditional and the most iconic type of impossible bottle. Other common objects include fruits, matchboxe ...
" episode from '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' * In Greg Egan's novel ''
Permutation City ''Permutation City'' is a 1994 science-fiction novel by Greg Egan that explores many concepts, including quantum ontology, through various philosophical aspects of artificial life and simulated reality. Sections of the story were adapted from E ...
'' the protagonist creates digital copies of himself to conduct experiments that are also related to implications of artificial consciousness on identity * Puppet Master – '' Ghost in the Shell''
manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
and anime * R2-D2 – exciteable astromech droid featured in all the ''
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' movies * Replicants – bio-robotic androids from the novel '' Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' and the movie '' Blade Runner'' which portray what might happen when artificially conscious robots are modeled very closely upon humans * Roboduck – combat robot superhero in the '' NEW-GEN'' comic book series from Marvel Comics * Robots in
Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
's ''Robot'' series * Robots in ''The Matrix'' franchise, especially in '' The Animatrix'' * The Ship – the result of a large-scale AC experiment, in
Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel '' Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked a ...
's '' Destination: Void'' and sequels, despite past edicts warning against "Making a Machine in the Image of a Man's Mind" *
Skynet Skynet may refer to: Airlines * Sky Net Airline, a charter airline from Armenia * Skynet (airline), a Russian regional airline based at the Krasnoyarsk Airport * Skynet Airlines, a defunct Irish airline that operated in 2001–2004 * Skynet, a d ...
– from the ''
Terminator Terminator may refer to: Science and technology Genetics * Terminator (genetics), the end of a gene for transcription * Terminator technology, proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation s ...
'' franchise * "Synths" are a type of
android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
in the video game '' Fallout 4''. There is a faction in the game known as "The Railroad" which believes that, as conscious beings, synths have their own rights. The Institute, the lab that produces the synths, mostly does not believe they are truly conscious and attributes any apparent desires for freedom as a malfunction. * TARDIS – time machine and spacecraft of ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'', sometimes portrayed with a mind of its own * Terminator cyborgs – from the ''
Terminator Terminator may refer to: Science and technology Genetics * Terminator (genetics), the end of a gene for transcription * Terminator technology, proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation s ...
'' franchise, with visual consciousness depicted via first-person perspective * Transformers – sentient robots from the various series in the Transformers robot superhero franchise of the same name * Vanamonde – an artificial being that was immensely powerful but entirely child-like in
Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...
's ''
The City and the Stars ''The City and the Stars'' is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1956. This novel is a complete rewrite of his earlier ''Against the Fall of Night'', Clarke's first novel, which had been published in '' Star ...
'' * WALL-E – a robot and the titular character in '' WALL-E'' * YoRHa - A militarized faction of conscious androids from the video game, Nier: Automata. The Nier franchise repeatedly uses simulated consciousness and philosophy as a central theme. * Robots and also the drone companion B-12 in Annapurna Interactive's game
Stray Stray or The Stray or ''variation'', may refer to: Animals * A feral (abandoned or escaped) domestic animal; see also estray * A stray or free-ranging dog Places * Areas of open grassland in North Yorkshire: ** Strays of York ** The Stray (Har ...


See also

* General fields and theories ** Artificial intelligence *** Artificial general intelligence (AGI) – some consider AC a subfield of AGI research *** Intelligence explosion – what may happen when a sentient AI redesigns itself in iterative cycles ** Artificial philosophy – the area of philosophy in which AI ponder their own place in the world ** Brain–computer interface **
Hardware for artificial intelligence Specialized computer hardware is often used to execute artificial intelligence (AI) programs faster, and with less energy, such as Lisp machines, neuromorphic engineering, event cameras, and physical neural networks. Lisp machines Lisp ma ...
** Cognitive architecture ** Computational theory of mind ***
Consciousness in animals Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within a non-human animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, awaren ...
*** Simulated consciousness (science fiction) ** Identity of indiscernibles ** Mind uploading ** Neurotechnology ** Philosophy of mind **
Simulated reality The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live i ...
**
Quantum cognition Quantum cognition is an emerging field which applies the mathematical formalism of quantum theory to model cognitive phenomena such as information processing by the human brain, language, decision making, human memory, concepts and conceptual re ...
* Proposed concepts and implementations ** Quantum mind ** ADS-AC (system) ** Conceptual space – conceptual prototype ** Copycat (cognitive architecture) ** Global Workspace Theory ** Greedy reductionism – avoid oversimplifying anything essential ** Image schema – spatial patterns ** Kismet (robot) ** LIDA (cognitive architecture) **
Memory-prediction framework The memory-prediction framework is a theory of brain function created by Jeff Hawkins and described in his 2004 book ''On Intelligence''. This theory concerns the role of the mammalian neocortex and its associations with the hippocampi and the th ...
**
Psi-Theory Psi-theory, developed by Dietrich Dörner at the University of Bamberg, is a systemic psychological theory covering human action regulation, intention selection and emotion.Dörner, D., Bartl, C., Detje, F., Gerdes, J., Halcour, D., Schaub, H., ...
**
Brain waves Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by ...
and Turtle robot by William Grey Walter


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * Casti, John L. "The Cambridge Quintet: A Work of Scientific Speculation", Perseus Books Group, 1998 * Franklin, S, B J Baars, U Ramamurthy, and Matthew Ventura. 2005
The role of consciousness in memory
Brains, Minds and Media 1: 1–38, pdf. * Haikonen, Pentti (2004), ''Conscious Machines and Machine Emotions'', presented at Workshop on Models for Machine Consciousness, Antwerp, BE, June 2004. * McCarthy, John (1971–1987)

Stanford University, 1971-1987. * Penrose, Roger,
The Emperor's New Mind ''The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics'' is a 1989 book by the mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose. Penrose argues that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled ...
, 1989. * Sternberg, Eliezer J. (2007) ''Are You a Machine?: The Brain, the Mind, And What It Means to be Human.'' Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. * Suzuki T., Inaba K., Takeno, Junichi (2005),'' Conscious Robot That Distinguishes Between Self and Others and Implements Imitation Behavior'', (Best Paper of IEA/AIE2005), Innovations in Applied Artificial Intelligence, 18th International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, pp. 101–110, IEA/AIE 2005, Bari, Italy, June 22–24, 2005. * Takeno, Junichi (2006)
''The Self-Aware Robot -A Response to Reactions to Discovery News-''
HRI Press, August 2006. * Zagal, J.C., Lipson, H. (2009)
Self-Reflection in Evolutionary Robotics
, Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, pp 2179–2188, GECCO 2009.


External links


Artefactual consciousness depiction by Professor Igor Aleksander


* ttp://www.Conscious-Robots.com www.Conscious-Robots.com Machine Consciousness and Conscious Robots Portal. {{Consciousness Artificial intelligence Consciousness Consciousness studies Computational neuroscience