AI and Consciousness

Some things in life cannot be offset by a mere net gain in intelligence.

The world’s best-known consciousness researcher says machines could one day become self-aware.

The history of our relationship with technology is simple: we purchased machines and devices that we expected to fulfill a certain need.

Recent studies have found that humans can feel concern over a robot if they think that it is in pain. This indicates that we can feel as much empathy for a mechanical person as a biological one.

Peter Singer and Agata Sagan: If, as seems likely, we develop super-intelligent machines, their rights will need protection, too.

The German researchers say this will keep robots safer, because "pain is a system that protects us." Added bonus: They say the humans who work alongside them are likely to be safer, too.

Will there ever be a robot psychiatrist? Not for the foreseeable future.

Computers will soon be able to simulate the functioning of a human brain. In a near future, artificial superintelligence could become vastly more intellectually capable and versatile than humans.

Why AI cannot ever have human conciousness.

How would you feel about getting therapy from a robot? Emotionally intelligent machines may not be as far away as it seems. Over the last few decades, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly good at reading emotional reactions in humans. But reading is not the same as understanding. If AIs cannot experience emotions themselves, can they ever truly understand us? And, if not, is there a risk that we ascribe robots properties they don’t have?

Do you talk to your car and lovingly stroke its shiny bonnet when it performs well? Or perhaps you have heated discussions with your computer, and threaten separation if it doesn’t speed up. Whilst these are obviously machines and don’t respond to, nor reciprocate your feelings, the latest robots not only look increasingly like us, they can recognize and respond to our emotions as well.

Last month, the parliament’s legal affairs committee voted to to begin drafting a set of regulations to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence and robotics. It sounds bizarre but could we see a future where AI could get married and do other things that people can?

Robots may match humans in recognising different types of emotions in the next few decades.

AI systems are beginning to acquire emotions. But whether that means they deserve human-type rights is the subject of a thorny debate.

Ex Machina asks whether machines can have feelings—or at least fake it.

Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC) or synthetic consciousness (Gamez 2008; Reggia 2013), 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" (Aleksander 1995).