[Robotgroup] Can Animals and Robots Be Self-Aware?

[Leslie Filip]

On 22 Apr 2007, at 6:53 PM, Def Egge wrote:

> <snip>

> At what point do emergent
> properties of hierarchical order elevate one from
> the mundane to the intelligent?
>
> <snip>

> All the best....
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Robotgroup mailing list
> Robotgroup at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/robotgroup


I have started to think that the machines will start to let us know  
they are conscious once they are conscious. Before that happens,  
though, I predict many of the programs running the machines will go  
into fatal loops. Thus the software that runs the machines will have  
to be at least partially fault tolerant, using what is known as  
"fuzzy logic". This will keep the programs "alive" but will also make  
them less perfect and even more like us.

Eventually a machine or program will convince us it is alive, and  
after the first generation of humans after this happens dies off  
people will wonder why we ever thought the programs weren't alive to  
begin with. Machine life will be accepted just as much as any other  
by many people, but some humans will continue to believe our species  
is somehow special.

Les