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Current approaches to machine consciousness (MC) tend to offer a range of characteristic responses to critics of the enterprise. Many of these responses seem to marginalize phenomenal consciousness, by presupposing a 'thin' conception of phenomenality. This conception is, we will argue, largely shared by anti- computationalist critics of MC. On the thin conception, physiological or neural or functional or organizational features are secondary accompaniments to consciousness rather than primary components of consciousness itself. We outline an alternative, 'thick' conception of phenomenality. This shows some signposts in the direction of a more adequate approach to MC.
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In what ways should we include future humanoid robots, and other kinds of artificial agents, in our moral universe? We consider the Organic view, which maintains that artificial humanoid agents, based on current computational technologies, could not count as full-blooded moral agents, nor as appropriate targets of intrinsic moral concern. On this view, artificial humanoids lack certain key properties of biological organisms, which preclude them from having full moral status. Computationally controlled systems, however advanced in their cognitive or informational capacities, are, it is proposed, unlikely to possess sentience and hence will fail to be able to exercise the kind of empathic rationality that is a prerequisite for being a moral agent. The organic view also argues that sentience and teleology require biologically based forms of self-organization and autonomous self-maintenance. The organic view may not be correct, but at least it needs to be taken seriously in the future development of the field of Machine Ethics.
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In this paper, the notion of super-intelligence (or "AI++", as Chalmers has termed it) is considered in the context of machine consciousness (MC) research. Suppose AI++ were to come about, would real MC have then also arrived, "for free"? (I call this the "drop-out question".) Does the idea tempt you, as an MC investigator? What are the various positions that might be adopted on the issue of whether an AI++ would necessarily (or with strong likelihood) be a conscious AI++? Would a conscious super-intelligence also be a super-consciousness? (Indeed, what meaning might be attached to the notion of "super-consciousness"?) What ethical and social consequences might be drawn from the idea of conscious super-AIs or from that of artificial super-consciousness? And what implications does this issue have for technical progress on MC in a pre-AI++ world? These and other questions are considered.
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I compare a ‘realist’ with a ‘social–relational’ perspective on our judgments of the moral status of artificial agents (AAs). I develop a realist position according to which the moral status of a being—particularly in relation to moral patiency attribution—is closely bound up with that being’s ability to experience states of conscious satisfaction or suffering (CSS). For a realist, both moral status and experiential capacity are objective properties of agents. A social relationist denies the existence of any such objective properties in the case of either moral status or consciousness, suggesting that the determination of such properties rests solely upon social attribution or consensus. A wide variety of social interactions between us and various kinds of artificial agent will no doubt proliferate in future generations, and the social–relational view may well be right that the appearance of CSS features in such artificial beings will make moral role attribution socially prevalent in human–AA relations. But there is still the question of what actual CSS states a given AA is capable of undergoing, independently of the appearances. This is not just a matter of changes in the structure of social existence that seem inevitable as human–AA interaction becomes more prevalent. The social world is itself enabled and constrained by the physical world, and by the biological features of living social participants. Properties analogous to certain key features in biological CSS are what need to be present for nonbiological CSS. Working out the details of such features will be an objective scientific inquiry.
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It is suggested that some limitations of current designs for medical AI systems (be they autonomous or advisory) stem from the failure of those designs to address issues of artificial (or machine) consciousness. Consciousness would appear to play a key role in the expertise, particularly the moral expertise, of human medical agents, including, for example, autonomous weighting of options in (e.g.,) diagnosis; planning treatment; use of imaginative creativity to generate courses of action; sensorimotor flexibility and sensitivity; empathetic and morally appropriate responsiveness; and so on. Thus, it is argued, a plausible design constraint for a successful ethical machine medical or care agent is for it to at least model, if not reproduce, relevant aspects of consciousness and associated abilities. In order to provide theoretical grounding for such an enterprise we examine some key philosophical issues that concern the machine modelling of consciousness and ethics, and we show how questions relating to the first research goal are relevant to medical machine ethics. We believe that this will overcome a blanket skepticism concerning the relevance of understanding consciousness, to the design and construction of artificial ethical agents for medical or care contexts. It is thus argued that it would be prudent for designers of MME agents to reflect on issues to do with consciousness and medical (moral) expertise; to become more aware of relevant research in the field of machine consciousness; and to incorporate insights gained from these efforts into their designs.
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While the recent special issue of JCS on machine consciousness (Volume 14, Issue 7) was in preparation, a collection of papers on the same topic, entitled Artificial Consciousness and edited by Antonio Chella and Riccardo Manzotti, was published. The editors of the JCS special issue, Ron Chrisley, Robert Clowes and Steve Torrance, thought it would be a timely and productive move to have authors of papers in their collection review the papers in the Chella and Manzotti book, and include these reviews in the special issue of the journal. Eight of the JCS authors (plus Uziel Awret) volunteered to review one or more of the fifteen papers in Artificial Consciousness; these individual reviews were then collected together with a minimal amount of editing to produce a seamless chapter-by-chapter review of the entire book. Because the number and length of contributions to the JCS issue was greater than expected, the collective review of Artificial Consciousness had to be omitted, but here at last it is. Each paper's review is written by a single author, so any comments made may not reflect the opinions of all nine of the joint authors!