Submission + - Conscious Sentient Robots Capable of Feelings are Impossible, Say Researchers (ibtimes.co.uk)
concertina226 writes: If you're a big fan of Isaac Asimov and sentient robots like Johnny Five and Sonny, you might not be happy to hear that computer science researchers have used mathematical theory to prove that robots capable of feelings and emotions will never exist.
Using a variation of Giulio Tononi's influential mathematical framework for consciousness, a team of researchers from the National University of Ireland have proved mathematically that computers are unable to completely integrate information.
Tononi's 2008 framework argued that integrated information cannot be reduced into smaller components, so for example, if a human were to perceive a red triangle, the human brain would not be able to break down the triangle as a colourless outline of a triangle and a shapeless patch of red at the same time. The researchers disagree.
"There's no computer you could build that could integrate information so that it cannot be edited. Computers can still be useful and intelligent without complete integration, but we will never trust it as we trust a person, as the computer is just following certain algorithms," said Dr Maguire, who led the research.
"We agree with Tononi's approach but we feel his quantification of integrated information didn't work. The cost of integrating something was that you would lose a lot of your memories at the same time, so we decided to provide a new type of quantification."
Using a variation of Giulio Tononi's influential mathematical framework for consciousness, a team of researchers from the National University of Ireland have proved mathematically that computers are unable to completely integrate information.
Tononi's 2008 framework argued that integrated information cannot be reduced into smaller components, so for example, if a human were to perceive a red triangle, the human brain would not be able to break down the triangle as a colourless outline of a triangle and a shapeless patch of red at the same time. The researchers disagree.
"There's no computer you could build that could integrate information so that it cannot be edited. Computers can still be useful and intelligent without complete integration, but we will never trust it as we trust a person, as the computer is just following certain algorithms," said Dr Maguire, who led the research.
"We agree with Tononi's approach but we feel his quantification of integrated information didn't work. The cost of integrating something was that you would lose a lot of your memories at the same time, so we decided to provide a new type of quantification."
