It’s an experience that brings to mind the test in the science fiction film Bladerunner, designed to distinguish humans from artificially created beings posing as humans.
Could I be a robot from the future and not know it? Would I pass the test?
The researchers assure me that this is not actually what this experiment is about. The device that they call the “Dreamachine, external” is designed to study how the human brain generates our conscious experiences of the world.
As the strobing begins, and even though my eyes are closed, I see swirling two-dimensional geometric patterns. It’s like jumping into a kaleidoscope, with constantly shifting triangles, pentagons and octagons. The colours are vivid, intense and ever-changing: pinks, magentas and turquoise hues, glowing like neon lights.
The “Dreamachine” brings the brain’s inner activity to the surface with flashing lights, aiming to explore how our thought processes work.
The images I’m seeing are unique to my own inner world and unique to myself, according to the researchers. They believe these patterns can shed light on consciousness itself.
They hear me whisper: “It’s lovely, absolutely lovely. It’s like flying through my own mind!”
The “Dreamachine”, at Sussex University’s Centre for Consciousness Science, external, is just one of many new research projects across the world investigating human consciousness: the part of our minds that enables us to be self-aware, to think and feel and make independent decisions about the world.
By learning the nature of consciousness, researchers hope to better understand what’s happening within the silicon brains of artificial intelligence. Some believe that AI systems will soon become independently conscious, if they haven’t already.
But what really is
consciousness, and how close is AI to gaining it? And could the belief
that AI might be conscious itself fundamentally change humans in the
next few decades?...<<<Read More>>>...
