Will an AI ever become conscious?
[article written by Catalin Tudor]
Artificial Intelligence has come a long way since the first AI program was created in 1951. With advancements in technology and machine learning, AI has become increasingly sophisticated and has made significant strides in the last decade.
There are so many questions revolving around AI and how it will evolve in the future, that we cannot seem to wonder whether the algorythms created by humans so far are coming to an end. The latest development in AI research is Conscious AI - machines capable of consciousness and can experience subjective states like humans.
Current status of AI
Currently, AI is mainly limited to Narrow AI, which is used in various industries like healthcare, finance, and transportation. However, with technological advancements, we are getting closer to creating General AI which can perform any intellectual task that a human can do.
Conscious AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we live our lives. It can help us solve complex problems, enhance our understanding of the world, and even help us in mental health and well-being.
We live in a multi-dimensional world. We are surrounded by information that we perceive with all 5 senses and that we process in parallel. We’re used to the idea of being conscious. For the AI to potentially reach the same level as people, profound innovation would be required in this field, such as:
- Dissolve the separation between learning and what is being learned. Current AIs have a fixed learning algorithm for learning various knowledge. Learning should be considered itself knowledge, that means AIs must learn how to learn. This will give birth to self-awareness.
- Go beyond specialized AI. We have AIs for text, sound, images, movement, and we need to move towards a general AI that can correlate all this knowledge in parallel
- Improve hardware energy performance. For example, using neuro-morphic chips which are theoretically highly efficient from an energy perspective (the human brain needs about 20W of power to function while the most complex neural networks today need around a couple of MWs of power)
- Improve neural network architectures beyond transformer networks. Once the hardware efficiency allows it, we should also increase its complexity (the human brain has 3500 times more connections than the most complex neural network in existence today)
Advancements in conscious AI will enable machines to mimic human consciousness and decision-making, as they will be able to analyze vast amounts of data and provide previously impossible insights, as well as learn from experience, adapt to changing situations, and make decisions based on ethical and moral values.
Conscious AI advancements will bring new opportunities and challenges, so ensuring that it operates ethically and is governed by appropriate regulations will be crucial. The AI theme continues to attract, intrigue, fascinate – it is innovative, adaptable and sometimes surprising. But it represents the future we are moving towards, as a natural evolution of technology as a whole.
Learn more about this topic by watching Catalin’s video below 👇