The New York Times has an article on whether robots will ever become conscious:
To Dr. Moravec, if it acts conscious, it is. To ask more is pointless.Posted by dcoates at November 13, 2003 12:27 PMDr. Chalmers regards consciousness as an ineffable trait, and it may be useless to try to pin it down. "We've got to admit something here is irreducible," he said. "Some primitive precursor consciousness could go all the way down" to the smallest, most primitive organisms, even bacteria, he said.
Dr. Chalmers too sees nothing fundamentally different between a creature of flesh and blood and one of metal, plastics and electronic circuits. "I'm quite open to the idea that machines might eventually become conscious," he said, adding that it would be "equally weird."
This brings up some interesting philosophical questions about what is "consciousness". But maybe this isn't the forum for that :)
Posted by: Matt on November 13, 2003 04:16 PMWell, I could always share my personal crackpot (but really highly intellectual) theory that some dogs are conscious and some are not.
Hehe.. that is interesting. I remember discussing this in a philosophy class. We were discussing how you could tell if something was conscious... one student suggested that something that is conscious has a personality. It would be hard to imagine any robot with a personality (unless your a Matrix fan), but anyone who has a pet (my cats...) knows that some animals have definite personalities.
Is this sort of along the lines you are thinking? :) I'm interested in hearing it.
Posted by: matt on November 13, 2003 10:01 PMPersonality, definitely. And the ability to form relationships. Now, I have to remember the rest of the basis for my theory :-) More later....
BTW, my sense is that these guys talking about consciousness in robots are really hung up on the idea that consciousness must look human. I think you could learn a lot from looking at species that are not-us and trying to locate where there are differences and similarities. If you define consciousness as 'doing stuff like we do' then you haven't really defined it at all. All you're saying is 'if it doesn't act like us it isn't conscious'
Posted by: DebC on November 14, 2003 09:36 AMI like to collect views on that issue. The more different, the better. Not looking for the ONE TRUTH. Back to robots:
Apart from the engineering-a-robot, AIBO, and classical AI approaches, to me, little Ricci stands out as an orthogonal design principle. Check http://www.enticypress.com, follow the links on the left part to little ricci and enticy one and be prepared for some mind-twisting ideas. Don't believe everything. Play with Roach.
And: do we really want conscious or intelligent robots? I'm not sure. If I could afford an Electrolus Trilobite ( http://trilobite.electrolux.co.uk/node1287.asp ), I want it to clean my appartment. I would not feel comfortable if I knew it was conscious and intelligent doing such simple work.
Posted by: christianhauck on November 18, 2003 04:03 AMWell, crap! I just wrote a longish comment on consciousness and intelligence and dogs and MT just ground it into nothingness.
Dang! It was brilliant too...
Posted by: DebC on November 18, 2003 04:09 PM... yuo should have used the latest word processor ...
http://www.faber-castell.de/bausteine/bausteine/link.asp?id=14507&aktion=&domid=1010&lgi=