Philosophical Views of Artificial Consciousness
As there are many designations of consciousness, there are many potential types of AC. In the philosophical literature, perhaps the most common taxonomy of consciousness is into "access" and "phenomenal" variants. Access consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that are amenable to a functional description, while phenomenal consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that seem to defy functional depiction, instead being characterized qualitatively in terms of “raw feels”, “what it is like” or qualia (Block, 1997). Weaker versions of AC only require that functional, “access consciousness” be artificially instantiated.
For example, when the visual cortex of the brain processes neural impulses from the eyes and determines that the image consists of a spherical object in a rectangular box, this is access consciousness and is not philosophically difficult, because such pattern recognition has been simulated by computer programs. But how to emulate phenomena such as pain, or anger, or motivation, or attention, or feeling of relevance, or modeling other people's intentions, or anticipating consequences of alternative actions, or inventing or rediscovering new concepts or tools or procedures without reading about them or being taught?
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