Back to basics and forward to novelty in machine consciousness

Abstract

Machine consciousness has emerged from the confusion of an oxymoron into an evolving set of principles which, by leaning on information integration theories, define and distinguish what is meant by 'a conscious machine'. This paper reviews this process of emergence by indicating how it is possible to break away from the Chalmers 'hardness' of a computational consciousness by a general concept of A becoming conscious of B where both are formally described. We highlight how this differs from classical AI approaches, by following through a simple example using the specific methodology of weightless neural nets as an instance of a system that owes its competence to something that can be naturally described as 'being conscious' rather depending on the use AI algorithms structured by a programmer. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.