Artificial awareness
Artificial awareness or artificial sentience is an unsolved sub-problem of the problem of artificial consciousness.[1] The term describes a form of hypothetical software that would be able to have feelings, without necessarily knowing or understanding anything about the world. Currently, no computer is known to be capable of feeling anything at all.
Awareness is only one part of consciousness, along with memory, learning, and anticipation. A seemingly fundamental state that is experienced by many living organisms (also called choiceless awareness or phenomenal consciousness[2]), artificial awareness appears to be a minimum requirement for a computer to be able to experience pleasure or pain among other things.
Types of awareness
In humans, most rational thoughts could be formally described. The thoughts of the unconscious mind, to the extent it exists separately,[3] are those thoughts that can't be formally described.[4] However these thoughts, which are also subconscious,[5] may still contribute to (or even cause) awareness, which currently can't be formally described either.[6] Feelings and emotions can not be directly controlled by rational thought, but instead influence rational thought.[7]
Rational thought relies on several sub-types of awareness, embodying a great deal of knowledge not currently being processed by the conscious mind. These include agency awareness (remembered past actions), goal awareness (intended future actions), and sensorimotor awareness (current actions).[8]
Mystery of awareness
Artificial awareness is at the heart of the Hard Problem of awareness. This problem describes the seeming inscrutability of the qualia, or those subjective elements of perception which apparently can't be reduced or explained away, though qualia can be categorized by type (like colors). In the past, these elements were suspected of being supernatural in origin, though scientists no longer believe that.[9]
Awareness across time
- It is unknown if awareness exists at a single moment in time, or if it takes a certain amount of time for awareness to exist.[10]
- It is unknown if awareness is a permanent element of the human mind, or if it's constantly changing into fundamentally different phenomena.[11][12]
- The philosophical zombie problem makes it impossible to know whether other minds are aware, or even whether a mind was aware in the past, even if the mind has no doubt that it is presently aware.
Issues
- Eliezer Yudkowsky expressed concern that someone might invent simple software that could easily generate pain.[13]
- Philosophers studying the ethics of artificial intelligence have argued that machine rights depend on these machines having a similar type of essential awareness as humans experience, even if their thoughts are very different.[14]
References
- ↑ Quora thread, Dec 2015. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Awareness-and-Consciousness-How-to-become-aware-of-the-subconscious-state
- ↑ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/
- ↑ Michael Heap, "Let's wave goodbye to the unconscious mind", Oct 2000. http://www.mheap.com/letswave.html
- ↑ http://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html
- ↑ http://www.diffen.com/difference/Subconscious_vs_Unconscious_mind
- ↑ Steven Paglierani, on the layers of the mind, 2005. http://theemergencesite.com/Theory/Consciousness-Subconsciousness-2.htm
- ↑ Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Jan 25 2014. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201401/our-irrational-emotional-life
- ↑ Johannes Roessler and Naomi Eilan (eds.), "Agency and Self-Awareness: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology" ISBN 0199245622 (2003) http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23825-agency-and-self-awareness-issues-in-philosophy-and-psychology/
- ↑ Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, Jan 21 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness
- ↑ David Yerle (Mar 19 2013) http://www.davidyerle.com/consciousness-and-time/
- ↑ William James "The stream of consciousness" (1892) http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jamesselection.html
- ↑ Olivia Goldhill "Neuroscience backs up the Buddhist belief that “the self” isn’t constant, but ever-changing" (Sep 20 2015) https://qz.com/506229/neuroscience-backs-up-the-buddhist-belief-that-the-self-isnt-constant-but-ever-changing/
- ↑ Reddit comment, Feb 5 2013. https://www.reddit.com/r/LessWrong/comments/17y819/lw_uncensored_thread/c8a3rqu/
- ↑ Legal rights for machines: Some fundamental concepts (Jan 2011) David J. Calverley. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287067921_Legal_rights_for_machines_Some_fundamental_concepts
