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Artficial Intelligence, Consciousness and Philosophy

Some philosophers as well as many well respected scientists believe that machine consciousness may one day become a reality. Are the robots that we create are only lifeless zombies performing algorithmic actions without subjective experiences? Some robots as well as other machines are capable of scanning and diagnosing their own subprocesses, whether or not this constitutes consciousness is in question. According to Stan Franklin and many other scientists, the question of whether or not an agent is conscious is not boolean (in other words, we can not only say whether or not something is or is not conscious). A human being for example, is probably more conscious then an amoeba. If you have trouble seeing how some animals are self-aware consider a couple of orangutans. In an experiment conducted by a few zoologists, each of these orangutans were placed in front of a mirror and subsequently tranquilized. Red paint was subsequently marked about their forehead. When each of these orangutans had awaken, they each stared in the mirror before them and started rubbing on the red spot on their foreheads. Certainly, some, if not all, animals are self-aware to a certain degree.

If machines could be conscious, then they must also have different levels of consciousness. Is a chess-playing program just as conscious as an amoeba? Is a chess-playing program even conscious at all? If we assumed that chess-playing programs had subjective experiences then where would it be located? Is it not just an agent that inhabits a miniscule portion of your hard-drive? The answer is probably yes. The architecture of a chess-playing program would probably not allow for consciousness. In that case, whatabout neural networks? These are programs with what the connectionists claim to have a superior architecture- particularly one that models a brain. Even then, we know so little about our own brains that presently we can do almost nothing in attempting to achieve some form of geniune consciousness. Chalmers offers a pattern-information based proof to the enigma of consciousness.

All computer programs are inherently algorithmic. Thus, consciousness must be algorithmic if machines can even be conscious to any degree in the first place. If consciousness was not algorithmic, then we can certainly forget about symbolic AI systems or anything that is a Turing machine being conscious. Even then, neural networks are algorithmic, although it seems as if they're whole purpose was to model our own brains- and even if we ever proved that our own brains worked algorithmically (which seems to be true from a physicalist standpoint), consciousness would still remain a mysterious phenomenon. Actually, consciousness is a topic that is capable of getting everyone stymied, no doubt. Or, could the reason why agents like us humans possess consciousness, be simply because so we could make non-algorithmic decisions and actions? Many philosophers, physicist and even mathematicians have tried to counter the great claim of machine consciousness. Some have looked into the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the inherent architecture of all computer programs, etc. Yet, nobody has offered a proof or a theory that is widely accepted.

Most interesting is the fact that if there existed a machine that was conscious, how would we have any way of knowing that it was? All of us may be sure of each of the presence of our own consciousness but no one can actually be sure that anyone else besides them has consciousness. We are not able to share the experiences and sensations of other human beings (unless if you were psychic, of course). We can conclude by asserting that this question has the potential to drive anyone out of their sanity.