Artificial Consciousness

Group 3

Mohit, Raghuvar, Avin, Aniruddha

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one's environment; this contrasts with being asleep or being in a coma

Being self-aware

Derives from Latin conscienta which primarily means moral conscience

Aspects of Consciousness

Awareness Awareness of one's environment and one's own

existence

Anticipation The ability to predict foreseeable events

Learning The ability to learn from experience

Aspects of Consciousness (contd) Sentience

Utilization of sensory organs

Sapience Ability of an entity to act with judgment

Types of consciousness

Phenomenal Experience (Qualia) Hard part

Access Verbal report Reasoning Control of behavior Easy part

Hard Problem of Consciousness Explain how flows and electrochemical

processes in the brain give rise to the inner experience of subjective awareness.

Neural correlate of Consciousness

Artificial Consciousness (AC)

Consciousness in machine

Engineering artifacts which possess Self awareness Wisdom Ability to learn Ability to Sense

Why Artificial Consciousness? Creating machines resembling human beings

Understanding the nature of consciousness

Implementing more efficient control systems.

Goals of Artificial Consciousness Twofold target in Artificial Consciousness:

The nature of phenomenal consciousness The active role of consciousness in controlling

and planning the behaviour of an agent

Important Question Is Artificial Consciousness possible?

Outline

Raghuvar Why AC may not be possible?

Avin How to build a Conscious System?

Aniruddha Applications and Future Work

Several key questions...

Can computers think or do they just calculate?

Is consciousness a human prerogative? Does consciousness depend on the material

that comprises the human brain, or can computer hardware replicate consciousness?

Is simulation of consciousness the same as consciousness?

Turing test

Test for machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligence

Machine and human in separate room converse with a human interrogator

Goal is to convince him that you are human Annual competition : Loebner Prize

($100,000) to computer that passes : no winners yet!

Turing Test :implications

Main argument: If a computer can portray itself as a human

successfully, then essentially there is no difference between a human and a computer

Ability to actively process linguistic syntax, infer context, have the notion of ‘self’, deal with a finite knowledge base and moral questions

The computer is conscious!!....or is it?

Chinese Room

Chinese Room

Person inside the room is a non-speaker of Chinese

He is given Chinese symbols corresponding to questions

Instruction book in English telling him which symbol he has to output corresponding to the input

To the outside world, he’s an excellent speaker of Chinese

Searle, 1984

Brains cause minds. Syntax is not sufficient for semantics. Computer programs are entirely defined by

their formal, or syntactical, structure. Minds have mental contents; specifically,

they have semantic contents.

Searle’s argument

(1) If Strong AI is true, then there is a program for Chinese such that if any computing system runs that program, that system thereby comes to understand Chinese

(2) I could run a program for Chinese without thereby coming to understand Chinese.

(3) Therefore Strong AI is false.

Widely debated by philosophers and scientists.

No conclusion as to whether it is possible to develop a truly conscious machine

Computational Barrier

Minimum level of computation necessary to achieve human like consciousness: can be calculated using Neural networks The human brain has about 1012 neurons, and each

neuron makes about 103 synaptic connections with other neurons, on average, for a total of 1015 synapses. 

Neural Network : each synapse : 4bytes 1015 synapses : 4million GB Add auxiliary variables : 5 million GB !

Minimum prerequisite : Necessary, not sufficient condition

Consciousness System - Imitation and Self-others distinction System for generating consciousness Implementation of imitation behavior

important as the first stage of study of consciousness

Distinguish between self and others Consciousness generated by

consistency of cognition and behavior

Structure of a Consciousness System Consciousness

System comprises of :

a) Cognition Systemb) Behavior Systemc) Primary

Representationd) Symbolic

Representation

Cognition System

Information enters the consciousness system at Input and reaches the Cognition System

Used for neural computation together with the information from BL (internal information)

Derived information transmitted to RL (cognized information)

Language labels have different areas for condition of self and others

Behavior System

Behavior information from BL passes to the Behavior System

Information added to input and sensory information by neural computation

Resultant information is transmitted to Output to implement a behavior

Primary Representation

Common area for the cognition and behavior system

Behavior learning during cognition and cognition learning during behavior

Each piece of information is correctly related to language labels of symbolic representation

The consciousness system brings a process of artificial thoughts as information is circulated

Example – Human Language

Conversation between self and other Input: the speech of both self and the other Somatic sensation that self is talking is fed

back as input Behavior of a new language label (through

circulation) gives rise to thinking and expectations

Possible to offer new topics for conversation.

Consciousness through Imitation Mirror neurons

Brain of monkeys Neuron fires when implementing a certain behavior by

itself or upon observing others with the same behavior Primary representation equivalent to mirror neuron

Imitation occurs while information circulates through primary and symbolic representation

Circulation of information through external models and one’s own brain is necessary for imitation

Learning in a Consciousness System

Neural Network (NN) of a conscious system

(b)

c)

Features of NN in a consciousness system Two structural features to implement

consistency of cognition and behavior Recursiveness - Somatic sensation of behavior of

self is fed back to enhance learning efficiency Presence of a common area for cognition and

behavior and data circulation

Imitation learning and cognition of behavior of self and others possible

Back propagation (BP) method of supervised learning used for NN learning through simulation

Ongoing Research

Hot research area in AI

Several serious attempts to make conscious machines Franklin’s Intelligent Distribution Agent Ron Sun's cognitive architecture CLARION Haikonen’s cognitive architecture

Cognitive Robots

Intelligent Distribution Agent

Negotiate new assignments for sailors in the US Navy

Interacts with Navy databases and communicates with the sailors via natural language email dialog

Based on Global Workspace Theory - Baars Relies heavily on codelets Not attributed as conscious

CLARION

Fundamental structures of the human mind Distinction between conscious and unconscious

mental processes Bottom-up learning - learning that involves acquiring

first implicit knowledge and then acquiring explicit knowledge on its basis)

Successful in accounting for a variety of psychological data

Skill learning tasks : SRT, AGL, PC, CI

Haikonen’s cognitive architecture Rule-based computing inadequate for

achieving AC A special cognitive architecture Artificial neuron A low-complexity implementation of the

architecture proposed (2004) Not capable of AC – but exhibit emotions as

expected

Conscious Robots

Evolution of Conscious Robots: Simple reflex Simple reflex with memory Perception with meaning and associative

memory Perception with associative memory and

report The robot perceives itself perceiving

Looking Ahead

Robots

References in Movies The Matrix I, Robot

Cognitive Robots Sensors, path planning, and manipulator design and

control vs ability to reason, act and perceive

Able to “know what they are doing”

Consciousness per se does not make any sense unless accompanied by end to end processes like perception and behavior.

Future cognitive robots will be able to interact with humans, acting and learning in unpredictable environments.

Cognitive Robots Applications Service robots, social robots, and personal

assistance robots (like Maggie) Assistant robots for disabled people (like Asibot) Human-like performing robots (like Manfred) Autonomous space exploration robots and robotic

assistance for orbital assembly and repair (like Robonaut)

Robocup players Autonomous emergency and rescue robots (like

BEAR)

Kismet, the Sociable Robot

AIBO, Robot pet dog

Open questions

Someday, when machines claim they are conscious, will we believe them?

Will we be able to “test” consciousness? Could machines become “deluded” that they

are conscious? Could the World Wide Web be a form of

Consciousness?

Summary

Artificial consciousness will lead to intelligent and more useful agents

Difficult to understand and validate Attempts to model consciousness through a

neural network Field of intensive research and philosophical

debate in the years to come

References

Block, N. On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (2): 227-287, 1995

Buttazzo, G. Artificial Consciousness: Utopia or Real Possibility? Spectrum IEEE Computer 18: 24-30, 2001

Conscious Robot That Distinguishes between Self and Others and Implements Imitation Behavior

18th International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems,2005

Franklin ,S. IDA: A Conscious Artifact? Journal of Consciousness Studies 10:47-66,2003

Wikipedia