Introduction
No doubt, we have witnessed the rise of intelligent machines of which the term "Artificial Intelligence" would suffice the most for their description. But like it has always been speculated that a point is approaching when machines (AI, as the case may be) would outsmart humans. But looking at this holistically, majority of the emphasis has been laid on the cognitive abilities (cognitive domain) of machines in comparison to the human brain power. But what about other domains like; the efferent domain, and the psychomotor domain? Would an advance in this aspect create machines with human-level of consciousness? Let's find out.
[Image Source: Pixabay: CC0 licensed]
Concept of Artificial Consciousness (AC)
Okay! Here's the thing; AI is majorly based on some pre-programmed algorithms that enables the machine to review and relate information from a database to a real-life scenario. But this does not necessarily mean the ability of self-awareness. Truth is; we have seen major advances in the field of AI, like; the self driving car, the chatbot, not to mention the medical AIs (DaVinci, robo-surgeon, etc), yeah; this is brilliant, but does this equate to consciousness? Permit me to reiterate the words of a renowned futurist; Ian Pearson again:
AI could be billion times smarter than humans. - Ian Pearson. Source. [Paraphrased by me]
The predefining word here is "smarter", but what areas would it cover? Will it include the human-level of consciousness, and the ability to process huge amount of information in real-time without having prior data concerning it? These are some of the qualities that are the absolute prerogative of the human brain. In my previous post, I made mention of the possible replacement of humans by machines in jobs. Okay; that would also save us the stress of being workaholics, but would these machines also be responsible for their actions?
There has been a major debate in relation to machines achieving self-awareness, and among them is the issue of ethics. Here's a very valid argument; would a self-aware or conscious machine be regarded or referred to as "person" under the ethical law? And when it contravenes any predefined rule or even harm an individual, would it be liable and responsible for its actions? People have been calling on the establishment of super-aware machines, but this questions have been majorly left unattended to.
Beyond Self-awareness
It has always been believed that almost all biological abilities of the human body can be simulated by technology (no wonder our bodies have been often referred to as biological machines, so as to prove the possibilities of its simulation/replication). That is also the reason it has been believed that consciousness or self-awareness is a feature that can be replicated by technology.
[Image Source: Pixabay: CC0 licensed]
But there are more things to consciousness than is just seen peripherally. This include; but not limited to; the ability to perceive the surrounding and to draw out inferences from observing them. It also includes the ability to receive an entirely new set of information, storing them, and retrieving them together with some other previously stored information in response to some real-life scenarios that require cognitive processing (mark the word "real-time").
This does not stop there. Now let's consider the creative power of the mind, the behavioural pattern of humans and also the sense of belonging/freedom that is inherent in humans. These are some of the things that are relational to our efferent domain, of which consciousness is a part of it. And remember, these characteristics are without prejudice to some logical calculations. So with this in mind, we know what to expect from a "conscious machine".
Now we have seen that the cognitive ability is not the only thing exclusively preserved for the human brain, we also have the efferent abilities and the psychomotor abilities. But what advances have been put in place to advance this course? Okay let's take a look at this.
The Artificial Brain
This is also called the "artificial mind" and it is any hardware or software embedded with the cognitive abilities relative to the human brain. You won't be wrong to refer to this as the "brain simulator" or "brain emulator".
First of all, there have been researches by various cognitive neuroscientists to understand the details of how the brain of human works. Now, with the understanding of this, a simulation can be made from it. You may ask; how far have they gone? Till now, one of the best advances is the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) which is an enhancement of the normal Artificial Intelligence that we have known, which enables machines perform; with high precision index; intellectual tasks that were the absolute prerogative of humans to perform. The futurist; Ray Kurzweil, normally refers to this as the "Strong AI", but you can also call it "Full AI".
But the question is; does this equate to consciousness? Judging by the pre-defined explanation I gave earlier, you would agree with me that some areas are still found wanting. But no doubt, this is actually a positive move in the right direction.
I won't also have you ignorant that these machines would need some level of processing power to be able to simulate effectively the human brain (remember it has been estimated that the human brain can store up to 2.5petabytes of data, not to talk about the speed at which it can process information). In relation to this, I would drop an extrapolated chart of the required processing power of machines to simulate the human brain; as indicated by some futurists and proponents of emerging technology (Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostron, and Ander Sandberg).
[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Authors (Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostron, and Ander Sandberg) Tga.D. CC BY-SA 3.0]
From this chart, you can infer that by the year 2060, an effective distribution of complexes would be achieved, which; no doubt; would be the next step in the realization of the absolute conscious machine.
Conclusion
As technology is advancing, the boundaries of biology are being crossed. We have seen yet another boundary that is about being crossed; and that is "consciousness". Technology has created a way to hack and simulate the human biological body in an unnatural way. And with the trend of event, we could have a fully conscious machine sooner than we imagine. Does this mean that the future would favour technology over biology? Well, let's keep an open mind and watch what the future holds.
Thanks for reading
References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
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