I have an essay in Aeon magazine on the possibility that machines might become conscious without our realizing it and possible ways to test for that. A huge variety of physiological and behavioral tests of consciousness might be adapted to machines, and Spanish AI researcher Raúl Arrabales Moreno and his colleagues have systematized them as a 12-level scale of consciousness. They have an online calculator that you can use to rank putative conscious beings.
Level | Explanation | Animal Example | Human Age Equivalent | Machine Example | |
–1 | Disembodied | Blends into environment | Molecule | ||
0 | Isolated | Has a body, but no functions | Inert chromosome | Stuffed animal | |
1 | Decontrolled | Has sensors and actuators, but is inactive | Corpse | Powered-down computer | |
2 | Reactive | Has fixed responses | Virus | Embryo to 1 month | ELIZA |
3 | Adaptive | Learns new reactions | Earthworm | 1–4 months | Smart thermostat |
4 | Attentional | Focuses selectively, learns by trial-and-error, and forms positive and negative associations (primitive emotions) |
Fish | 4–8 months | CRONOS robot |
5 | Executive | Selects goals, acts to achieve them, and assesses its own condition |
Octupus | 8–12 months | Cog |
6 | Emotional | Has a range of emotions, body schema, and minimal theory of mind |
Monkey | 12–18 months | Haikonen architecture (partly implemented by XCR-1 robot) |
7 | Self-Conscious | Knows that it knows (higher-order thought) and passes the mirror test |
Magpie | 18–24 months | Nexus-6 (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) |
8 | Empathic | Conceives of others as selves and adjusts how it presents itself |
Chimpanzee | 2–7 years | HAL 9000 (2001) |
9 | Social | Has full theory of mind, talks, and can lie | Human | 7–11 years | Ava (Ex Machina) |
10 | Human | Passes the Turing Test and creates cumulative culture |
Human | 12+ years | Six (Battlestar Galactica) |
11 | Super-Conscious | Coordinates multiple streams of consciousness | Bene Gesserit (Dune) | augmented | Samantha (Her) |
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