Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Understand

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern.

• This report argues for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness.
• We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory.
• From these theories we derive "indicator properties" of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties.