What are the computational correlates of consciousness?

Reggia, James A.; Katz, Garrett E.; Huang, Di

doi:10.1016/j.bica.2016.07.009

Cited by 19 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…The basic idea is that these computational investigations could discover neurocomputational mechanisms occurring with phenomenally conscious aspects of cognition that are not also found to be present during cognitive processes that are unconscious. We have proposed elsewhere that this could provide examples of computational correlates of consciousness, in the same way that neuroscientists have identified neural correlates of consciousness (Reggia et al, 2014(Reggia et al, , 2016.…”

Section: A Framework For Investigating Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 81%

Humanoid Cognitive Robots That Learn by Imitating: Implications for Consciousness Studies

2018

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While the concept of a conscious machine is intriguing, producing such a machine remains controversial and challenging. Here, we describe how our work on creating a humanoid cognitive robot that learns to perform tasks via imitation learning relates to this issue. Our discussion is divided into three parts. First, we summarize our previous framework for advancing the understanding of the nature of phenomenal consciousness. This framework is based on identifying computational correlates of consciousness. Second, we describe a cognitive robotic system that we recently developed that learns to perform tasks by imitating human-provided demonstrations. This humanoid robot uses cause-effect reasoning to infer a demonstrator's intentions in performing a task, rather than just imitating the observed actions verbatim. In particular, its cognitive components center on top-down control of a working memory that retains the explanatory interpretations that the robot constructs during learning. Finally, we describe our ongoing work that is focused on converting our robot's imitation learning cognitive system into purely neurocomputational form, including both its low-level cognitive neuromotor components, its use of working memory, and its causal reasoning mechanisms. Based on our initial results, we argue that the top-down cognitive control of working memory, and in particular its gating mechanisms, is an important potential computational correlate of consciousness in humanoid robots. We conclude that developing high-level neurocognitive control systems for cognitive robots and using them to search for computational correlates of consciousness provides an important approach to advancing our understanding of consciousness, and that it provides a credible and achievable route to ultimately developing a phenomenally conscious machine.

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Section: A Framework For Investigating Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 81%

Humanoid Cognitive Robots That Learn by Imitating: Implications for Consciousness Studies

2018

Self Cite

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“…Biomimetic and biohybrid engineering promise to develop the means to create sentient, self-aware robots, including sexbots, in the near future. Design methods to create robotic selves have been mooted [41,43,[70][71][72]. There is a potential for consciousness and self-awareness to arise through robotic activity involving problem-solving and applying acquired data experienced as pleasant/unpleasant [73].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexbots: Customizing Them to Suit Us versus an Ethical Duty to Created Sentient Beings to Minimize Suffering

Mackenzie

2018

Robotics

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Sex robot scholarship typically focuses on customizable simulacra, lacking sentience and self-awareness but able to simulate and stimulate human affection. This paper argues that future humans will want more: sex robots customized to possess sentience and self-awareness [henceforth, sexbots], capable of mutuality in sexual and intimate relationships. Adopting a transdisciplinary critical methodology focused on the legal, ethical and design implications of sexbots, it assesses implications of sexbots' non-mammalian subjectivity, balancing designed-in autonomy and control, decision-making capacity and consent, sexual preferences and desire, legal and moral status, vulnerability and contrasts between mammalian and non-mammalian moral decision-making. It explores theoretical, ethical, and pragmatic aspects of the tensions involved in creating sentient beings for utilitarian purposes, concluding that sexbots, customized manufactured humanlike entities with the capacity for thought and suffering, have a consequent claim to be considered moral and legal persons, and may become the first conscious robots. Customizing sexbots thus exemplifies many profound ethical, legal and design issues. The contradictions inherent in their inconsistent ethical and legal status as both manufactured things and sentient, self-aware entities who are customized to be our intimate partners augments existing human/animal scholars' call for a new theoretical framework which supersedes current person/thing dichotomies governing human responsibilities to other sentient beings. The paper concludes that the ethical limits and legal implications of customizable humanlike robots must be addressed urgently, proposing a duty on humans as creators to safeguard the interests and minimize the suffering of created sentient beings before technological advances pre-empt this possibility.

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“…The aim of this discussion is not to argue that the definition is problematic. 5 Instead, we wish to highlight the virtues of computational correlates of consciousness (CCCs; Cleeremans, 2005;Reggia et al, 2016). CCCs, as understood here, are not defined in terms of neural structures, but in terms of computational properties that can be instantiated by different substrates.…”

Section: From Neural Correlates To Computational Correlates Of Conscimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we will argue that FEP provides constraints on computational correlates of consciousness (CCCs; see Mathis & Mozer, 1996;Atkinson, Thomas, & Cleeremans, 2000;Cleeremans, 2005;Reggia, Katz, & Davis, 2019;Reggia, Katz, & Huang, 2016). CCCs specify computational properties instantiated by NCCs, and thereby provide some insights as to why a particular neural structure or type of activity is associated with consciousness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The neural correlates of consciousness under the free energy principle: From computational correlates to computational explanation

Wiese¹,

Friston²

2020

Preprint

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How can the free energy principle contribute to research on neural correlates of consciousness, and to the scientific study of consciousness more generally? Under the free energy principle, neural correlates should be defined in terms of neural *dynamics*, not neural states, and should be complemented by the research on *computational* correlates of consciousness -- defined in terms of probabilities encoded by neural states.We argue that these restrictions brighten the prospects of a computational explanation of consciousness, by addressing two central problems. The first is to account for consciousness in the absence of sensory stimulation and behaviour. The second is to allow for the possibility of systems that implement computations associated with consciousness, without being conscious, which requires differentiating between computational systems that merely simulate conscious beings and computational systems that are conscious in and of themselves.Given the notion of computation entailed by the free energy principle, we will derive constraints on the ascription of consciousness in controversial cases (e.g., in the absence of sensory stimulation and behaviour). We show that this also has implications for what it means to *be*, as opposed to merely *simulate* a conscious system.

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What are the computational correlates of consciousness?

Cited by 19 publications

References 71 publications

Humanoid Cognitive Robots That Learn by Imitating: Implications for Consciousness Studies

Humanoid Cognitive Robots That Learn by Imitating: Implications for Consciousness Studies

Sexbots: Customizing Them to Suit Us versus an Ethical Duty to Created Sentient Beings to Minimize Suffering

The neural correlates of consciousness under the free energy principle: From computational correlates to computational explanation

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