Machines Paying Attention
IGI Global eBooks January 18, 2011 DOI: 10.4018/9781599046273.ch005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that attention operates as the brain's superior control system, an engineering-control framing that helps functionally decompose complex task-related brain networks. Proposes a machine version of this attention control system extended to encode goals and their reward values, and suggests this could allow emotion, and possibly a glimpse of consciousness, to arise in the machine. |
Abstract
Attention is analyzed as the superior control system in the brain from an engineering point of view, with support for this from the way attention is presently being understood by brain science. Such an engineering- control framework allows an understanding of how the complex networks observed in the brain during various cognitive tasks can begin to be functionally decomposed. A machine version of such an attention control system is then discussed and extended to allow for goals and their reward values also to be encoded in the attention machine. The manner in which emotion may then begin to be imbued in the machine is briefly discussed and how even some glimpse of consciousness may then arise.Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.