Conscious artificial intelligence remains in the realm of science fiction for now. Despite dazzling progress, providing machines with true consciousness still raises many conceptual and technical challenges, as researchers explain.
AI, a revolution accessible to all
At the end of 2022, artificial intelligence became a tool available to the general public with the arrival of ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. This spectacular advancement has radically changed our view of technology, to the point of wondering whether machines will eventually surpass humans and dominate the Earth.
But before getting there, we would have to take a step that remains out of reach: providing machines with consciousness. Because even the most autonomous and sophisticated robot is not a conscious being. It needs a human operator to perform different tasks, without really “understanding” what it is doing. So, can an AI access a form of consciousness?
The requirements of “conscious computing”
Some scientists think so, but there is still a long way to go. A study cited by Bio Bio details the prerequisites for a machine to become conscious of something. There would need to be a system capable of:
However, current IT systems do not meet these criteria. Furthermore, they have neither mind nor living organism to construct sensory representations of their environment and their internal state. Characteristics specific to conscious beings.
Human consciousness and artificial consciousness
The problem is that we humans are not aware… of what we are not aware of! This deliberately redundant sentence illustrates the extent to which consciousness is a complex concept, which cannot be translated into a simple mathematical formula or a mechanical process.
This is where the problem lies: as long as we cannot clearly explain to ourselves what consciousness is, we will not be able to replicate it in a machine. Researchers are convinced that this is the major obstacle to the development of artificial intelligences endowed with sensitivity and a subjective experience of the world.
A still distant horizon
That doesn't mean it's impossible. Many laboratories are working on these questions as part of research on “artificial consciousness”. The stakes are high, because conscious AI would radically change our relationship with machines and open up dizzying possibilities, particularly in robotics.
But it will undoubtedly still take decades before we see the emergence of “real” conscious AIs, capable not only of thinking and learning for themselves, but also of feeling emotions and having a form of perception of them. -themselves. A fascinating… and a little frightening horizon, which raises profound ethical and philosophical questions.
In the meantime, current AIs, as impressive as they may be, remain tools at the service of humans. Increasingly sophisticated tools, but not yet endowed with consciousness. They nonetheless remain a major technological revolution, the full implications of which we are only beginning to see. To be continued !
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