Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness

GPT-4 (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer 4) is often heralded as a leading commercial AI offering, sparking debates over its potential as a steppingstone toward Artificial General Intelligence. But does it possess consciousness? This paper investigates this key question using the nine qualitative measurements of the Building Blocks theory. GPT-4’s design, architecture, and implementation are compared to each of the building blocks of consciousness to determine whether it has achieved the requisite milestones to be classified as conscious or, if not, how close to consciousness GPT-4 is. Our assessment is that, while GPT-4 in its native configuration is not currently conscious, current technological research and development is sufficient to modify GPT-4 to have all the building blocks of consciousness. Consequently, we argue that the emergence of a conscious AI model is plausible in the near term. The paper concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the ethical implications and societal ramifications of engineering conscious AI entities.

In the realm of multi-agent systems, establishing social self-awareness in agents stands as a critical challenge within the broader scope of artificial general intelligence research. Addressing this challenge, in this paper, we draw upon Tomasello’s social self-awareness theory as a foundational framework, and employ Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS), an artificial general intelligence model, to simulate analogical and recursive reasoning methods used by socially embodied agents. In this paper, we assume that an agent can possess sensorimotor capabilities and physical common sense, it explores the process of constructing a “core self” through embodied reasoning. On this basis, we explore deeper into the construction process of social self-awareness. As a result, we clarify how agents generate common knowledge about themselves through recursive reasoning regarding the mental states of others and communication dynamics. Following this initial step, metaphors are generated utilizing analogical reasoning, intertwining public knowledge with these metaphors to facilitate mutual comprehension between humans and machines. This paper delves into the simulation of perspective representation and recursive reasoning within social embodied agents, employing NARS — an overarching artificial intelligence platform. The experimental results substantiate the viability of constructing a social self-agent within a machine framework grounded in embodied reasoning.

In this paper, I’ll examine whether we could be justified in attributing consciousness to artificial intelligent systems. First, I’ll give a brief history of the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) and get clear on the terms I’ll be using. Second, I’ll briefly review the kinds of AI programs on offer today, identifying which research program I think provides the best candidate for machine consciousness. Lastly, I’ll consider the three most plausible ways of knowing whether a machine is conscious: (1) an AI demonstrates a sufficient level of organizational similarity to that of a human thinker, (2) an inference to the best explanation, and (3) what I call “punting to panpsychism”, i.e., the idea that if everything is conscious, then we get machine consciousness in AI for free. However, I argue that all three of these methods for attributing machine consciousness are inadequate since they each face serious philosophical problems which I will survey and specifically tailor to each method.

This paper explores a philosophical problem at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI), and the potential impact of these novel AI “mind-reading” technologies on various forms of mind–body dualism, including substance, interaction, property, predicate, and emergent dualisms. It critically examines how AI’s ability to interpret and predict mental states from neural patterns challenges traditional dualistic theories, which have historically posited distinct relationships between the mind and body. The paper analyzes each dualistic theory in the context of AI advancements. Substance and interaction dualisms are scrutinized for their claims of mind–body independence and causal interaction, respectively, in light of AI’s capabilities to correlate mental and physical states. Property dualism’s assertion of unique mental properties emerging from physical processes is tested against AI’s potential to map mental phenomena to brain activity. Predicate dualism’s linguistic and conceptual distinction between mental and physical realms is challenged by AI’s ability to bridge these domains. Similarly, emergent dualism, which views mental states as novel phenomena, confronts the possibility of their reduction to physical brain processes. Despite these challenges, the paper argues for the adaptability of dualistic theories to integrate AI insights, suggesting a re-evaluation rather than a negation of dualism. It highlights the enduring relevance of philosophical inquiry into the nature of consciousness and mind–body relationships in the age of AI, suggesting that such technological advancements invigorate rather than terminate the philosophical debate.

The ancient Ouroboros symbolism (one who eats oneself) is here integrated into a simple birth–death clustering process that needed nothing but itself for a transition from indistinguishable phases to a sort of higher-level “conscious” phases. Birth and death coefficients are formulated in terms of odd and even exponentials used to represent a suitable form for conscious states via the internal transfer of information. This toy model may ideally quantify conscious states having inner causes via an Ouroboros index $0<{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_{\alpha ,\mathrm{\Omega }}<1$. The value ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_{{\alpha }_{,}\mathrm{\Omega }}$ = 0 lends to infinite loops and the limiting values ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_{{\alpha }_{,}\mathrm{\Omega }}$ $\to$ 1 disclose transformation into awareness. Relationships with physics theories of consciousness and the use of the Ouroboros index to discern about conscious-like states in Artificial Intelligence systems are discussed. Consciousness and freedom of will may go side-by-side in the model when ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_{{\alpha }_{,}\mathrm{\Omega }}$ is extended to be a complex number modulus.

Consciousness still remains puzzling and controversial. This paper demonstrates that at general and objective level, for understanding consciousness it is necessary to understand such fundamental concepts as contrast, interaction, complexity and emergence. New definitions of these terms are provided as they are erroneous or incomplete in their current form. The result of these investigations is the explanation that consciousness is the sensation of energy interaction (like the sensation of touch or pain), but in a more complex form. This objective explanation and the resulting conclusions have been applied to the study of artificial intelligence consciousness and creativity. Specific solutions have been proposed here.

Isaac Asimov, the well-known author of novels that featured positronic robots, also penned tales featuring Multivac, an immense electronic brain that grappled with the weighty and intricate decisions impacting all of humankind. In his 1958 short story All the Troubles of the World, Asimov introduced us to a Multivac tormented by the consciousness of its own thought processes to the extent that it desired its own demise. Through this narrative, Asimov delved into the existential dimensions of artificial consciousness: he depicted the Multivac’s adeptness in planning, reflexivity, and intentionality aimed at self-terminating — qualities that, in a tragic parallel, are also observed in certain cases of human suicidal behavior. Starting from these suggestions, we propose an existentialist and self-reflection criterion for consciousness, intertwining phenomenal consciousness with an entity’s capability to conceive thoughts about its own mortality. We argue that, according to certain psychological literature and the existentialist essays of Emil M. Cioran, artificial systems might be deemed conscious if they possess death-thought accessibility— the capacity, akin to that of humans, to conceive thoughts about their own mortality and intentionally conceive self-termination. Naturally, this criterion shares the inherent challenges associated with defining intentionality, reflexivity, and, ultimately, the very concept of consciousness as it pertains to humans.