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Consciousness in AI: Insights from the Science of Consciousness (arxiv.org)
2 points by weird_science on Aug 22, 2023 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: They turned leading brain theories of consciousness into checkable signs, then tested today's AI systems against those signs. None of the systems tested is conscious, but nothing in the technology clearly blocks building one that meets those signs.

Abstract · Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argues for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive "indicator properties" of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Eric Elmoznino, Yoshua Bengio, Jonathan Birch, Axel Constant, George Deane, Stephen M. Fleming, Chris Frith, Xu Ji, Ryota Kanai, Colin Klein, et al.
arXiv:2308.08708 · cs.AI, cs.CY, cs.LG, q-bio.NC · submitted Aug 17, 2023 · updated Aug 22, 2023
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