Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study
Journal of Consciousness Studies August 1, 2026 Mark Solms, St John Grimbly, Bruce Bassett et al.
Creatures that display ‘hedonic place preference behaviour’ are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of...