Artificial Consciousness: What is it?

Abstract

The advancements we have made in robotics thus far is extraordinary. As extraordinary as those advancements have been, robots are simply used as tools. They can only perform tasks that they have been programmed to do. But, what if they somehow become self-aware, and now are able to make decisions based on their own reasoning and judgement? What would that mean for the human race, and would Asimov’s three laws of robotics be enough? The only way to answer these questions and to gain a complete understanding, would be to first understand what it means to be a robot with artificial consciousness.

Through our research, we hope to provide an understanding of what classifies as a robot with artificial consciousness, the implications those robots will have on the human race, as well as the need for laws concerning the programming and legal rights of said robots, and whether those laws will be enough to protect the human race. To support our research we will look at the various definitions of scholars, and fictional works of literature concerning artificial consciousness, such as, Artificial Beings: The Conscience of a Conscious Machine, by Jacques Pitrat, Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers exceed Human Intelligence-Kay Kurzwell, and Artificial Consciousness, by Antonio Chello and Riccardo Manzottti.