Raúl Arrabales Moreno, Machine Consciousness researcher at Carlos III University of Madrid

“CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVES BESIDES GENETICS”

By Ana María Jaramillo V. (Translation of interview published by Blog Sistemas Inteligentes)

Inspired by the Strong Artificial Intelligence school, the same that captivated audiences in movies like ‘The Matrix’ or ‘2001 Space Odyssey’, this engineer by profession, multidisciplinary scientist by passion, believes the ultimate goal of Machine Consciousness research is to understand human nature. He pursues, as only a few do, the dream of creating self-conscious robots, as he asserts the best way to prove that something is understood is by recreating it.

Arrabales believes the real advancement of this field will come thanks to the synergy between mind research and technological disciplines. He knows he will live to see important qualitative changes and advocates the application of cognitive models from psychology or neurology to computational architectures.

This young scientist works in a controversial but fascinating field, where everyday research can be turned into fantasy, raising questions about free will and determinism in both humans and their creations.

AMJ: From what I understood reading you blog, you believe in the creation of artificial consciousness, don’t you?

RA: Yes, I believe so. However, it is not clear to me when and to what degree we will achieve this goal. Actually, one of the most important research lines I am currently working on is focused on the measure of the degree of artificial consciousness. There is no consensus about how to address this challenge. In fact, we don’t have a clear answer about the degree of consciousness of a coma patient. The definition of the term consciousness is a problem itself.

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (198) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 2170 | E-mail

Machine Consciousness Bibliography

A searchable compilation of selected papers on Machine Consciousness (updated weekly):

MC-Papers

MC-Papers or Machine Consciousness Bibliography is an online database containing indexed references and abstracts for a selected literature in Machine Consciousness. Database records include links to the pdf or html versions of the papers when available (please note some of the links may require registration or checking of your local institution's entitlement to access the full papers).

The MC-Papers database contains conference proceedings, journal articles, books, technical reports, and other literature in the particular field of Machine Consciousness. This database is intended to be a very specific bibliographic resource for the research in Machine Consciousness, but not a comprehensive database in the more general area of the scientific study of consciousness (check MindPapers for a broader bibliography of the Philosophy of Mind and Science of Consciousness).

MC-Papers is being updated regularly including new and relevant publications related with the computational and engineering aspects of consciousness. Sources of new records include publisher’s databases, international journals and conferences, etc. Besides, Conscious-Robots.com user feedback is highly appreciated and helps us create a more comprehensive bibliography, so please contact us with suggestions or proposed entries.

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (174) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 2106 | E-mail