AI Consciousness?

[victoriaperine]

I know this topic is extremely contraversial and debated, but I'm writing a book where an AI attempts to become as human as possible. Would it, eventually, especially in the far future, be possible for an AI to gain a conscious? To be clear, my definition of a consciousness being the ability to possess self-created morals, thoughts, and views, AKA a whole personality.

And if this is possible (and let's just say it is for this question), about how long may it take for something to happen and under what conditions might this be able to happen?

 

[PeroK]

Given that we are conscious, the only questions are a) how sophisticated an AI needs to be; and, b) what biological or social parameters are needed in order for it to gain human-like consciousness?

It must be possible, unless you believe consciousness is a religious or supernatural gift.

 

[DaveC426913]

I have nothing to add to PeroK's concise assessment.

Take it to its logical limit: at some point, we will have sufficiently-advanced technology to artificially construct a brain that's made of synapses and neurons, all built from proteins and organics. Now we have an artificial brain that's indistinguishable from a natural brain.

 

[javisot]

The first step would be to have a scientific definition of consciousness (which we don't have), and then we'll see. To arrive at that definition, we would first have to solve a wide range of problems, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_neuroscience

 

[russ_watters]

I know this topic is extremely contraversial and debated, but I'm writing a book where an AI attempts to become as human as possible. Would it, eventually, especially in the far future, be possible for an AI to gain a conscious? To be clear, my definition of a consciousness being the ability to possess self-created morals, thoughts, and views, AKA a whole personality.

Conscious or conscience? Because you said the former but seemed to imply the latter (and the sentence was grammatically incorrect).

 

[Gordianus]

More than forty years algo, Isaac Asimov wrote several novels where robots were conscious. Asimov relied on the so called "positronic brain". These robots faced very human dilemma. I feel these novels give a good starting point to further the subject.

 

[DaveC426913]

More than forty years algo, Isaac Asimov wrote several novels where robots were conscious.

You have a gift for understatement.

True, 85 years is "more than 40 years".
True, 37 is "several novels".

 

[reflectiveatlas]

I am making an independent effort trying to approach this question!

My stance at this point is that our current technology cannot replicate qualia, as the majority of artificial intelligence I have encountered is feed-forward only. I don't believe classical Von Neuman architecture could give rise to consciousness, as one would need a whole integrated system and the ability to self-modify.

I have a tough time reconciling the algorithmic nature of current programs with axioms present in Integrated Information Theory. Not to mention I read a news article recently (getting around to the paper) that suggests consciousness may arise more in the posterior, sensory regions of the brain. A question I struggle with is, if computational consciousness is possible, does this have to be modeled on biological consciousness?

My background is in neuroscience, so if there are any more computationally oriented individuals able to comment, I am open to learning more!

If anyone is interested in seeing some of the written work so far, here's the Github link: [Link redacted by the Mentors]

(I have been out of academia for a couple years, any constructive comments welcome!)