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Towards making computers conscious: trends and challenges

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Abstract

The question of consciousness has puzzledmany great philosophersfrom time immemorial and rightly so because of the fact that our brain is made up of flesh and blood and yet produces such vivid subjective experience s of reality. The topic of consciousness has been confined to the field of philosophy till recently; later, neuroscientists, psychologists and computer scientists have joined this quest to resolve the enigma of consciousness. Amongst many such varying approaches to understanding consciousness, there is a particular perspective called “Machine Consciousness” embraced by many prominent scientists and engineers working on reproducing consciousness in a machine. This paper is an exhaustive review of the advancements in machine consciousness and the underlying theories and cognitive architectures. This paper also covers criticisms and shortfalls of relevant approaches and elaborates on machine consciousness’s relationship with other fields.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) for support during this work. The anonymous Reviewer is acknowledged for several useful suggestions which improved the quality of presentation. The Editor Dr. Nasser Lotfi’s specific technical suggestions have been very constructive.

Funding

The author receives a nominal Honorarium of Rs. 30,000 per month (USD 400Appx) which is taxable at 33%; this support is received from the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI), a non-profit making Academy, which is the counterpart of National Academy of Science, USA. This support has been acknowledged in the Acknowledgements. There is no commercial financial funding.

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    L. M. Patnaik

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Patnaik, L.M. Towards making computers conscious: trends and challenges. Iran J Comput Sci 7, 139–153 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42044-023-00164-7

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