THE "HARD PROBLEM OF ARTIFICIAL CONSCIOUSNESS" IN THE CONTEXT OF A NON-PHYSICALIST APPROACH
Gumanitarnye vedomosti TGPU im L N Tolstogo December 27, 2024 DOI: 10.22405/2304-4772-2024-4-72-81 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues that the problem of digital consciousness should be reframed as the "hard problem of artificial consciousness," outside physicalist theories that reduce consciousness to body- or physics-based correlations. Because consciousness lacks a consensus definition, the author contends it is incorrect to completely deny the possibility of designing digital consciousness, and suggests qualia might be reproduced by artificially reconstructing the brain's functional organization. |
Abstract
The purpose of the article is a philosophical analysis of the problem of digital consciousness in the context of rapidly developing technologies in the field of artificial intelligence, in particular, the latest achievements related to programs of large language models. The novelty of the article lies in the approach to considering the problems of digital consciousness in the plane of the "hard problem of consciousness", a term introduced in 1995 by the Australian philosopher D. Chalmers ("hard problem of consciousness"), who emphasized the need to go beyond general scientific research methods in solving it, in contrast to "easy problems of consciousness". As a result, the reflexive field around artificial consciousness can be reduced to such a concept as the "hard problem of artificial consciousness" and projected outside the theories of consciousness of physicalism, which are reduced to the correlation of consciousness-body or consciousnessphysical. The lack of consensus on the definition of consciousness gives reason to consider it incorrect to completely deny the design of digital consciousness, and also allows us to build assumptions about the possibility of reproducing qualia through artificial reconstruction of the functional organization of the brain, producing the properties of phenomenal consciousness.