Philosophical foundations of artificial consciousness.
Artificial intelligence in medicine October 1, 2008 DOI: 10.1016/j.artmed.2008.07.011 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPessimism about artificial consciousness (AC) is unfounded, resting on misunderstandings of AI and ignorance of possible roles AI might play in reproducing consciousness. Through conceptual analysis, the paper shows that common objections fail against neglected possibilities for AC: prosthetic, discriminative, practically necessary, and lagom (necessary-but-not-sufficient) AC. Three strands of the author's work—interactive empiricism, synthetic phenomenology, and ontologically conservative heterophenomenology—illustrate these distinctions and defenses.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Argues that pessimism concerning the theoretical possibility of artificial consciousness is unfounded, based on misunderstandings of AI and a lack of awareness of the possible roles AI might play in accounting for or reproducing consciousness. |
Abstract
Consciousness is often thought to be that aspect of mind that is least amenable to being understood or replicated by artificial intelligence (AI). The first-personal, subjective, what-it-is-like-to-be-something nature of consciousness is thought to be untouchable by the computations, algorithms, processing and functions of AI method. Since AI is the most promising avenue toward artificial consciousness (AC), the conclusion many draw is that AC is even more doomed than AI supposedly is. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the soundness of this inference. The results are achieved by means of conceptual analysis and argumentation. It is shown that pessimism concerning the theoretical possibility of artificial consciousness is unfounded, based as it is on misunderstandings of AI, and a lack of awareness of the possible roles AI might play in accounting for or reproducing consciousness. This is done by making some foundational distinctions relevant to AC, and using them to show that some common reasons given for AC scepticism do not touch some of the (usually neglected) possibilities for AC, such as prosthetic, discriminative, practically necessary, and lagom (necessary-but-not-sufficient) AC. Along the way three strands of the author's work in AC--interactive empiricism, synthetic phenomenology, and ontologically conservative heterophenomenology--are used to illustrate and motivate the distinctions and the defences of AC they make possible.