Can a Machine be Conscious? Towards Universal Criteria for Machine Consciousness
This addresses the foundational problem of defining consciousness for researchers in philosophy, neuroscience, and AI, but it is incremental as it builds on existing discussions without introducing new empirical results.
The paper tackles the lack of consensus on defining consciousness by proposing five universal criteria for determining if a machine is conscious, aiming to guide interdisciplinary research in this area.
As artificially intelligent systems become more anthropomorphic and pervasive, and their potential impact on humanity more urgent, discussions about the possibility of machine consciousness have significantly intensified, and it is sometimes seen as 'the holy grail'. Many concerns have been voiced about the ramifications of creating an artificial conscious entity. This is compounded by a marked lack of consensus around what constitutes consciousness and by an absence of a universal set of criteria for determining consciousness. By going into depth on the foundations and characteristics of consciousness, we propose five criteria for determining whether a machine is conscious, which can also be applied more generally to any entity. This paper aims to serve as a primer and stepping stone for researchers of consciousness, be they in philosophy, computer science, medicine, or any other field, to further pursue this holy grail of philosophy, neuroscience and artificial intelligence.