A machine consciousness approach to autonomous mobile robotics

Proceeding of: 5th International Cognitive Robotics Workshop, 2006 (The AAAI '06 Workshop on Cognitive Robotics). Boston, Massachusetts, USA, July 16-17, 2006.In this paper we argue that machine consciousness can be successfully modelled to be the base of a control system for an autonomous mobile robot. Such a bio-inspired system provides the robot with cognitive benefits the same way that consciousness does for humans and other higher mammals. The key functions of consciousness are identified and partially applied to an original computational model, which is implemented in a software simulated mobile robot. We use a simulator to prove our assumptions and gain insight about the benefits that conscious and affective functions add to the behaviour of the robot. A particular exploration problem is analyzed and experiments results are evaluated. We conclude that this cognitive approach involving consciousness and emotion functions cannot be ignored in the design of mobile robots, as it provides efficiency and robustness in autonomous tasks. Specifically, the proposed model has revealed efficient control behaviour when dealing with unexpected situations.Publicad

La aplicación de modelos de consciencia artificial en los sistemas multiagente

Acta de: Campus Multidisciplinar en Percepción e Inteligencia, CMPI, 2006. Julio, 10-14, 2006. Albacete, España.Durante la última década han aparecido algunas implementaciones de modelos científicos de la consciencia basados en sistemas multiagente. El propósito de este artículo es recopilar y describir estos sistemas, determinando hasta que punto estas implementaciones satisfacen los modelos correspondientes, y analizando si proporcionan realmente las supuestas ventajas de usar consciencia artificial en la resolución de problemas. También se analizan en general las funciones de la consciencia y los beneficios que éstas pueden aportar en el rendimiento de los sistemas multiagente.Publicad

Evaluación y desarrollo de la conciencia en sistemas cognitivos artificiales

Históricamente el fenómeno de la conciencia humana ha sido en buena medida apartado del debate científico, siendo su estudio relegado casi exclusivamente al ámbito de la filosofía. Sin embargo, durante las últimas tres décadas se ha producido un interés creciente por el problema de la conciencia en diferentes disciplinas como la filosofía de la mente y la psicología cognitiva. Esta tendencia también se ha producido paralelamente en el ámbito multidisciplinar de las neurociencias. De hecho, la aparición de nuevas técnicas de diagnóstico por imagen ha propiciado que actualmente la mayoría de investigadores considere que la conciencia es susceptible de estudio científico. La formulación de nuevas teorías, tanto biológicas como psicológicas, acerca de la producción de la conciencia en los humanos, ha dado lugar a que se retomen algunos de los objetivos originales de la Inteligencia Artificial. Concretamente, se ha empezado a reconocer el campo de la Conciencia Artificial como una disciplina científica seria que se encarga del estudio y la posible construcción de máquinas con diferentes tipos y niveles de conciencia. En el ámbito de la Conciencia Artificial, la presente tesis pretende contribuir al conocimiento científico de la conciencia por medio de dos líneas de investigación relacionadas: la primera consiste en la concepción y aplicación de un método inédito para la medición y caracterización del nivel de desarrollo de la conciencia en un agente artificial, la segunda se basa en una arquitectura cognitiva artificial cuyo diseño se ha inspirado en diversas teorías de la conciencia. La utilización del método de medición propuesto permitirá analizar en detalle cuál es el nivel de desarrollo actual de máquinas conscientes y establecer cuáles son los aspectos que no se ha conseguido explicar o implementar hasta la fecha. Además, la escala propuesta se podrá utilizar como hoja de ruta para identificar cuáles son las habilidades cognitivas cuya implementación es necesaria para construir máquinas que muestren comportamientos equivalentes a los típicamente humanos. La aplicación de la arquitectura cognitiva propuesta como parte fundamental de los sistemas de control autónomo de agentes artificiales permitirá la experimentación con diferentes funciones cognitivas asociadas a la conciencia. Se estudiarán por tanto las interacciones entre diferentes capacidades como la atención, las emociones o la predicción sensorial, intentando descubrir las sinergias que potencialmente dan lugar a comportamientos complejos y adaptativos. Adicionalmente, usando el modelo computacional de conciencia implementado, se aplicará un enfoque de fenomenología sintética, que consiste en el modelado del contenido de la experiencia consciente. Se comparará la experiencia consciente descrita por un ser humano expuesto a ciertos estímulos perceptivos con el contenido explícito que la arquitectura cognitiva es capaz de generar al enfrentarse a los mismos estímulos. Los resultados de estas líneas de investigación proporcionarán información valiosa acerca de la validez de las teorías de la conciencia analizadas y de las diferencias encontradas entre los procesos cognitivos naturales y los generados artificialmente. Asimismo, se explorarán posibles áreas de aplicación práctica de la arquitectura cognitiva implementada, como por ejemplo, la creación de agentes artificiales cuyo comportamiento sea percibido por los usuarios como comportamiento humano. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Historically human consciousness has been rather excluded from the scientific debates, being philosphy the most important perspective for its study. However, over the last three decades different research disciplines such as philosophy of mind and cognitive psychology have shown a growing interest on the problem of consciousness. This trend has taken place also in the multidisciplinary context of neuroscience. In fact, recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have led most researchers to consider consciousness as a subject for scientific study. The development of new biological and psychological theories on the production of consciousness in humans has revived the original challenges of Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, the field of Machine Consciousness is becoming a rigorous scientific discipline aimed at studying and potentially creating machines with different types and levels of consciousness. In the context of Machine Consciousness, this thesis aims at contributing to the scientific knowledge about consciousness by means of two interrelated research lines: the first one consists of the conception and application of a novel method for the measurement and characterization of the level of development of consciousness of an artificial agent; the second one is based on an artificial cognitive architecture inspired on several theories of consciousness. The application of the proposed measuring technique will permit the detailed analysis of the current level of development of conscious machines and to identify what are the aspects that have not yet been achieved. Furthermore, the proposed scale will be used as a roadmap to identify what are the key cognitive skills that need to be implemented in order to create human-like machines. The application of the proposed cognitive architecture as a fundamental component of the control system of different artificial agents will permit the experimentation with different cognitive functions associated to consciousness. The interaction between different capabilities like attention, emotions or sensory prediction will be analyzed, looking for potential synergies that produce complex and adaptive behaviors. Additionally, using the proposed computational model of consciousness, a synthetic phenomenology approach will be adopted based on the modeling of the contents of conscious experience. The conscious experience reported by a human subject when confronted to certain stimuli will be compared with the explicit content that the cognitive architecture is able to generate when confronted to the same stimuli. The results obtained from these research lines will provide valuable information about the validity of the theories of consciousness that have been analyzed as well as the differences between natural and artificial cognitive processes. Besides, possible areas of application of the proposed cognitive architecture will be explored, such us the creation of artificial agents able to develop believable human-like behaviors

Applying machine consciousness models in autonomous situated agents

This paper briefly describes the most relevant current approaches to the implementation of scientific models of consciousness. Main aspects of scientific theories of consciousness are characterized in sight of their possible mapping into artificial implementations. These implementations are analyzed both theoretically and functionally. Also, a novel pragmatic functional approach to machine consciousness is proposed and discussed. A set of axioms for the presence of consciousness in agents is applied to evaluate and compare the various models

Strategies for measuring machine consciousness

The accurate measurement of the level of consciousness of a creature remains a major scientific challenge, nevertheless a number of new accounts that attempt to address this problem have been proposed recently. In this paper we analyze the principles of these new measures of consciousness along with other classical approaches focusing on their applicability to Machine Consciousness (MC). Furthermore, we propose a set of requirements of what we think a suitable measure for MC should be, discussing the associated theoretical and practical issues. Using the proposed requirements as a framework for the design of an integrative measure of consciousness, we explore the possibility of designing such a measure in the context of current state of the art in consciousness studies.This work has been supported by the Grant CICYTTRA-2007-67374-C02-02

Designing human-like video game synthetic characters through machine consciousness

[Abstract]: Towards a Science of Consciousness, 2009. June, 10-13, 2009, Hong Kong, China.No publicad

A multimodal attention mechanism for autonomous mobile robotics

Proceeding of: IX Workshop on Physical Agents 2008, University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain, September, 11-12th, 2008.Whatever the mission of an autonomous mobile robot is, attention is a helpful cognitive capability when dealing with real world environments. In this paper we present a novel control architecture which enables an integrated and efficient filtering of multiple modality sensory information. The concept of context is introduced as the set of criteria that determines what sensory information is relevant to the current mission. The proposed attention mechanism uses these contexts as a mean to adaptively select the constrained cognitive focus of the robot within the vast multimodal sensory space available. This approach for artificial attention is tested in the domain of autonomous mapping.This research work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science CICYT under grant TRA2007-67374-C02-02.Publicad

On the practical nature of artificial qualia

Proceeding of: 2010 Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB 2010), Leicester, UK, 29 March - 1 April, 2010.Can machines ever have qualia? Can we build robots with inner worlds of subjective experience? Will qualia experienced by robots be comparable to subjective human experience? Is the young field of Machine Consciousness (MC) ready to answer these questions? In this paper, rather than trying to answer these questions directly, we argue that a formal definition, or at least a functional characterization, of artificial qualia is required in order to establish valid engineering principles for synthetic phenomenology (SP). Understanding what might be the differences, if any, between natural and artificial qualia is one of the first questions to be answered. Furthermore, if an interim and less ambitious definition of artificial qualia can be outlined, the corresponding model can be implemented and used to shed some light on the very nature of consciousness.1In this work we explore current trends in MC and SP from the perspective of artificial qualia, attempting to identify key features that could contribute to a practical characterization of this concept. We focus specifically on potential implementations of artificial qualia as a means to provide a new interdisciplinary tool for research on natural and artificial cognition.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Education under CICYT grant TRA2007-67374-C02-02.Publicad

Criteria for consciousness in artificial intelligent agents

Proceeding of: Adaptive Learning Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, ALAMAS+ALAg 2008 – Workshop at AAMAS 2008, Estoril, May, 12, 2008, Portugal.Accurately testing for consciousness is still an unsolved problem when applied to humans and other mammals. The inherent subjective nature of conscious experience makes it virtually unreachable to classic empirical approaches. Therefore, alternative strategies based on behavior analysis and neurobiological studies are being developed in order to determine the level of consciousness of biological organisms. However, these methods cannot be directly applied to artificial systems. In this paper we propose both a taxonomy and some functional criteria that can be used to assess the level of consciousness of an artificial intelligent agent. Furthermore, a list of measurable levels of artificial consciousness, ConsScale, is defined as a tool to determine the potential level of consciousness of an agent. Both the mapping of consciousness to AI and the role of consciousness in cognition are controversial and unsolved questions, in this paper we aim to approach these issues with the notions of I-Consciousness and embodied intelligence.This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under project TRA2007-67374-C02-02.Publicad