The Creation of a Conscious Machine

The Quest for Artificial Intelligence

SECOND EDITION

Keywords: Philosophy of mind, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Synthetic Consciousness, Cognitive Architecture, Machine consciousness, Cognitive Robotics, Turing Test, Generative AI.

What’s it about

The Creation of a Conscious Machine surveys the millennial quest to create an intelligent artefact, concludes consciousness is the key to achieve this goal and proposes we adopt an understanding of Artificial Consciousness that can be expressed as Specifications suitable for machine implementation.

The text describes how achieving the goal of Artificial Intelligence will yield extraordinary intellectual benefits and deep insights into the human condition. It examines past attempts, from ancient times until today, to define intelligence and implement it, drawing useful lessons from each. In particular, the Turing Test, the most influential measure of Artificial Intelligence, is the subject of an in depth analysis. Ultimately, the author also rejects the Turing Test, and the concept of a test itself, as an unsuitable measure of machine intelligence.

Basing himself on this analysis, the author concludes that humans will only consider a machine to be truly intelligent if they also perceive it to be conscious. To realize the quest of Artificial Intelligence, it is necessary to implement consciousness. In turn, to achieve Synthetic Consciousness, we must discard the view that consciousness is a subjective experience in favor of a different understanding, deeply rooted in the Western tradition, that it is an externally observable capability.

Using this “new” understanding, the author then proposes a definition of Synthetic Consciousness, expressed as specific objectives that are suitable for software implementation. This makes it possible to build the first generation of synthetic conscious beings.

In the Second Edition, the specifications, originally intended for synthetic agents are extended to also include Generative AI systems.

The Creation of a Conscious Machine describes this investigation and the insights that led to a definition of Synthetic Consciousness that is applicable to Autonomous Agents as well as Generative AI.