Is Artificial Consciousness possible and could you completely transfer one's self into an engineered artifact and how this can be used in Computer Applications?

         




Methodology and explanation of the topic

My research is going to be looking into the progress that was made in the field of Artificial Consciousness (AC), also known as Machine Consciousness or synthetic consciousness. In its definition, AC aims to synthesize artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics into a programmable computer system, where consciousness can be found. Looking into the most qualified and supported documentation over the last 10 years, I will be looking into the potential and effect of AC in Application Software.

In Computer Games, artificial intelligence (AI) is used for simulating human-like actions such as decision making to produce an illusion of intelligence in the behaviour of non-playable characters (NPC). The player can interact with a NPC in the form of bots as enemies or allies in cooperative gameplay. In different styles of games the game AI is able to deal with a lot of actions which range from decision theory, problem-solving, environment awareness to squad tactics and army control. But the limitations of game AI stretch so far, because achieving something more  complex using this approach like commonsense knowledge, which is known as situated AI, requires enormous amounts of ontological engineering. One way it could be done is to have the computer understand enough concepts so it can learn through sources like the internet. If introduced into gaming, in theory it can enhance the capabilities of a game AI with actions such as abstract thinking, language interpretation, adaptation, awareness, subjective experience and will. Furthermore I will be looking into devices which study the electrical activity along the human scalp, known as Electroencephalography (EEG), and translate that information using computer software to achieve input and control computer applications. My research will be focused at how much of this is possible and what innovations could this bring to casual gaming or training and theoretical simulations.

In theoretical debates about the plausibility of AC there are many solid arguments on both sides and taking an agnostic view will allow me to examine and evaluate all ideas and possibilities for how much is known about AC. Theorists that are skeptical of AC hold that consciousness can only be realized in a physical environment as it has properties which necessarily depend on physical constitution. On the other hand proponents of AC believe that consciousness can be realised in properly designed and programmed computers. Igor Aleksander (1996) claims that the principles for creating a conscious machine already exist but that it would take forty years to train such a machine to understand language. So I’ll be looking only into project results and supported and approved claims before taking a route in one of the possible oppositions during the research.


There a lot of philosophical theories behind the different types of AC. In philosophical literature consciousness is divided into “cognitive” easy problems such as explaining object discrimination or verbal report and “phenomenal” hard problems which concerns those aspects of experience that seem to defy functional depiction, conceptual thought, qualia and sentience. But since such forms of “cognitive” or weaker AC such as shape recognition have already been achieved by computer software, I will be looking into the hard problems of consciousness.

If consciousness was found in a machine, there will be many ethical implications. If the synthesised being has a human-like consciousness then what rights should it have under law and what protection will it have from the physical conscious world. Because no such discovery has yet been made the subject is still legally considered as theoretical.