The concept of artificial consciousness, also known as machine or synthetic consciousness, refers to a type of artificial intelligence or non-biological machine created by humans and which is capable of understanding its own existence. In this way, becoming sentient.
However, self-awareness is a difficult concept to define and observe in other people or objects. Experts believe that it would be impossible to pinpoint the existence of artificial consciousness with precision, since the concept depends on a more philosophical understanding than a technical or tangible one.
The discussion about the possible existence or creation of a machine capable of acquiring a certain level of consciousness is wide-ranging. Several films and media content have already reflected on the subject, creating fanciful hypotheses about the world of artificial intelligence in this environment, in which robots acquire feelings, reflect their existence and are entirely sentient.
The line between artificial intelligence and consciousness
Some technological experts believe that machines are already capable of achieving artificial consciousness. However, nothing has been proven and most cases are just hypotheses.
Most of the time, people confuse artificial intelligence programs with something that has consciousness due to the level at which they can communicate. An article published on Singularity Hub, for example, exemplifies the case of Google's LAMDA software.
Loosely translated into Language Model for Dialogue Applications, chatbox technology is considered a type of artificial intelligence capable of responding to users. Blake Lemoine, one of the software engineers who worked on the project, believes that LAMDA has a virtual consciousness. However, Lemoine's bosses on the project disagree and suspended the engineer from work after publishing his dialogues with the machine online.
Unlike consciousness, intelligence — and therefore, artificial intelligence — can be counted. In this way, experts create intelligent machines with the correct programming and prove their capacity through an account of their efficiency.
As already mentioned, consciousness is a less tangible term and incapable of being counted and, therefore, does not have scientific evidence about its existence within the technological world.
Artificiality
Because it is a philosophical concept and based mainly on human experiences, many claim that machines cannot develop a type of consciousness similar to natural consciousness. However, others believe that the development of artificial consciousness is likely.
After all, artificial consciousness is exactly that, artificial. Therefore, it does not depend on the values and definitions added to human consciousness. Thus, it is possible to accept that artificial intelligence can become conscious, but not in the way that humans recognize the term.