Disorders of artificial awareness

The study of perceptual awareness in biology often relies upon the study of clinical conditions with either absent or abnormal awareness. In this article, we argue that the same approach may be fruitful in investigating artificial consciousness. To illustrate this, we draw upon recent examples in which disorders of awareness have been induced in artificial systems. Specifically, we call upon the induction of hallucinatory phenomena, and upon visual neglect: a classical disorder of awareness that manifests as a disruption of the action-perception cycle. The key ideas we seek to emphasise from these are the presence of an internal model that generates perceptual content, and the capacity to actively engage with the sensorium