Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
In examining the concept of robot consciousness from a neutral stand-
point, Samuel Butler argued
But surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and
consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to
say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end
of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things:
another when rocks and water were so. [1]
Butler's was (and is) an almost unassailable position, sitting as he was,
squarely on the fence, contending that we cannot prove it one way or the
other and therefore we must accept that robot consciousness
might
be
possible.
By now any reader who was initially a non-believer will hopefully be
more open-minded to the possibility that robots
might
have conscious-
ness. It may be that robots will have consciousness when they match the
computing power of the human brain. While we cannot be sure that
robots with the power of the human brain
will
have consciousness, it is
certainly more likely that robots will have consciousness by the time they
have
far exceeded
the computing powers of the brain. But we cannot, at
this point in time, be certain of either of these hypotheses, and it might
be that we will not even know for certain when it happens, though we
should certainly give robots the benefit of the doubt when they exhibit
consciousness and assume that they are indeed conscious.
Having refuted the principal contra-arguments and examined some
views that robot consciousness
might
be possible, we now come to the
opinions of two luminaries who have firmly stated the opinion that con-
sciousness in robots
is
possible. Ray Kurzweil, while not being so very far
from the fence himself, predicts a time when
We will have a massive neural net, built from silicon and based on
a reverse engineering of the human brain. Its circuits are a million
times faster than human neurons, and it can learn human language
and model human knowledge. It develops its own conceptions of
reality, and on its own blurts out that it is lonely. We will ask
whether this robot is a conscious agent. In the end we will come to
believe that such robots are conscious much as we believe the same
of each other. Their minds will be based on the design of human
thinking, and they will embody human qualities and claim to be
human. And we'll believe them. [9]
