Hi folks,

I just came across this article in the New York Times about research into the nature of consciousness and thought that it might have some relevance to the readers of this forum. Dr Tononi’s team is seeking ways to measure consciousness objectively and if they are successful, perhaps it won’t be long before we can judge the quality of our chatbots using the equivalent of a virtual multimeter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.html

What do you think?

Cheers,
Andrew Smith

Considering the theory is heavily based on information theory, I think that is a very good possibility.

A very interesting read Andrew.  I think Dr. Tononi may really be on to something here.  Consciousness being an emergent property of level of information integration - I like it !  It makes sense to me.  Integration, something like,  oh taking user input, generating all its possible meanings, then integrating that with knowledge of the world, of what is being talked about, and what is happening around you in order to select the proper interpretation.

Oh, it looks like the Admin moved my replies about consciousness to http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/240/#1766 as a “New Topic in Chatbot Development & Coding”. Farewell from this thread; if interested, see the new thread. -Arthur

Not to worry, Arthur. The thread and it’s posts is simply in a much better location, to give folks an easier way to find them.

By the way, you have some amazing stuff there! I haven’t researched all of the info yet, but what I have read so far is very impressive! Keep up the great work!