If the Artificial intelligence exists or not today is still an unknown that we can not clarify. What we do have is the definition of the concept of conscience. Thanks to an international team of neuroscientists, we can make a fairly accurate definition of what this term means. With this definition, we can establish if we are approaching Artificial Intelligence with awareness, bearing in mind that we have three types of consciousness. Artificial Intelligence with consciousness does not really exist today, but we could get to build these fully conscious artificial "minds".
It is very difficult to explain the term conscience (with concepts as complex as free will), but a good definition could be the conscience are the sensations and thoughts that people experience individually.
If we consider that consciousness is based on the laws described by physics and chemistry, it is easy to think that we should be able to reconstruct it. The scientist Alan Turing I had the dream of creating just that; a machine with a processor that mimics the behavior of the human brain. Although we have not yet reached his dream, today Turing would be more than impressed by the advances in this field, such as those demonstrated by Google's AlphaGo Zero.
If Artificial Intelligence exists, in what way can it influence our future?
Actually these Artificial Intelligences are incredible because they are capable of solving problems at extraordinary speeds, but instead, the difficulty lies in that they are able to know that they can solve these problems, that is, they are aware that they can solve them. That is the question of all this.
Types of awareness
The study of scientists who divided consciousness into three categories was published in the journal Science:
- C0: It corresponds to the lowest category, that is, to the simple resolution of problems that we are able to solve without the need of conscience, such as driving home from work. That is an action that we do practically without realizing it. If we extrapolate this ability to the machines, we could compare it with the automatic driving cars. At this point we will verify that this level of consciousness has already reached the machines.
- C1: it would be the level of average consciousness. Scientists describe it as "the relationship between a cognitive system and a specific object of thought, as a mental representation of" the light of the fuel tank ". At this level of consciousness, that object of thought is related to global processing, moving it from a close relationship to one that it can manipulate in various contexts.
- C2: It is the highest category of consciousness. It would be like a watchman who observes each and every one of the tasks he has. It would encompass what is known as "metacognition" which is described as the feeling of knowing what we know. It is also known as the "Theory of mind" .
Once the different types of consciousness have been described, we must bear in mind that type C1 awareness can occur without needing C2 and vice versa but, according to the researchers, none of these systems has, for now, their equivalence in Artificial Intelligence.
What does the future hold?
There are, to this day, companies that are making great strides in these fields, such as AlphaGo and DeepMind, but there are still many steps to be taken towards Artificial Intelligence with conscience. Experts in the field launch their speculations. According to them, type C1 consciousness evolved as a way to break the modulity of the processes of unconsciousness.
The microchips, thanks to the recent advances , they can process and store information as our own neurons would, they would have a clear and important role in the revolution of existing modular technologies.
To be able to say that Artificial Intelligence exists, we should first know much more about how our brains create those global workspaces that we call consciousness.
Reaching that level C2 will require, according to the researchers, several processes, some of which will consist of applying the probability of making decisions and others that have a type of meta-memory that establishes a line between what is known and what is unknown . In that way we could build machines in the future with Artificial intelligence consciously inspired by our own mental "hardware".
Anyway, what we will see or we will not see in the future It is an unknown today, and the technological advances are so fast that we can hardly imagine what could be to come. What do you think of all these advances? Do you think that Artificial Intelligence exists? There is a great debate about whether it will be beneficial or not for humanity, what do you think? Leave us your comments and we will be happy to read you!