Consciousness and

Understanding in
Autonomous Systems
Ricardo Sanz
Autonomous Systems Laboratory
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Towards Conscious AI Systems Symposium

AAAI Spring Symposium Series, Stanford University 2019
 Motivation

The engineer stance

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 2
 TOCAIS
• Toward conscious AI systems

• A tension lurking here:

• Chella and Manzotti describe machine consciousness as "the
attempt to model and implement aspects of human
cognition that are identied with the elusive and
controversial phenomenon of consciousness".
• They also state that "the main goals that artificial
consciousness should achieve: autonomy and resilience,
information integration, semantic capabilities,
intentionality, and self-motivations."

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 3

 What happes with AC?
• Personal memories of 20 years ago

Towards a Science of Consciousness

Skovde, Sweden, 2001

• Any real advance TOCAIS since then?

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 4

THIS SOUP
HAS
TOO MANY
INGREDIENTS !
 Themes that float around
• Learning
• Ontogeny
• Philogeny
• Evolution
• Moral
• Ethics
• Society

• As any doctor can tell you, all these are irrelevant to

assessing the “consciousness” of a patient
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 6
 More relevant themes?
• Qualia
• Self The past
• Embodiment
• Attention The present
The future
However, even some doctors may disagree
about these being relevant to “consciousness”
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 7
What is consciousness?

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 8

I’ve seen no equations
• No definitions
• No math
• No formal statements
• No datatypes
• No programs
• (apologies to the honourable exceptions)

• What is happening?
• Are we still in the pre-science stage? Forever?

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 9

 The current situation
• The field of “machine consciousness” as an open
range for writing papers on fringe areas of mind

• The “only” perceived posible path:

From human consciousness

to machine consciousness

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 10

Wrong !

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 11

The trap of antrhopomorphism
• The history of “artificial flight”
• The history of “artificial singing”
• The history of “artificial light”
• Should we create suns to iluminate the room?

• We don’t need copy, nor imitation, nor fake

• We don’t need the whole iguana of mind
• What we need are analysis and first principles
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 12
 First principles of what?
• Of self?
• Of qualia?
• How many of you deeply feel that IIT or EDT are
related to qualia?

• What we need are first principles of consciousness

that let us build machines that “are aware of the
aunts they want to kill” (or pedestrians by the way)
• We need machines that “know what’s going on”

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 13

 We need conscious drivers

Not neccessarily moral, emphatic, social, epigenetic …. whatever

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 14

 Not all AI systems are robots
• Not all systems perform activities usually done by
humans

R. Sanz 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 15

Machines
AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 16
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 17
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 18
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 19
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 20
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 21
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 22
 A problem in studies of C
• There is a big problem in the science, philosophy,
engineering of (machine) consciousness:

It is too centered in humans

• This is understandable (because humans are THE
SPECIMENS; in uppercase)
• This is also a problem in general AI and Robotics

• (and it happens also in TOCAIS talks :-)

2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 23
Consciousness in general terms
• Consciousness is a systemic state of a –situated–
system:
• Systemic: Happens at the system level due to the
interaction of system elements (beware “emergent”).
• When conscious, the system is making sense of
incoming signals.
• Making sense depends on the agent architecture
and value system (may be extrinsic, arbitrary).

• Now I’ve reached my real topic: Understanding.

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 24

Understanding
• Understanding is the core stuff that awareness is
made of (including self-awareness).
• Better understanding is what we -engineers- seek
in deployed AIs.

• But … What is understanding?

Another red herring to include in the list?

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 25

 Understanding Understanding
• It is easy to frame understanding in the context of
model-based theories of mind
• Minds are model-based controllers
• Agents use models of the world to properly interact
with it
• Models can be actionable: they can be exercised,
learnt, communicated, shared, tuned, …
• Models are knowledge: the stuff of cognition

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 26

 Models
• World models are core elements of cognitive systems
and core resources for both scientists and engineers

The scientist models extant worlds. The engineer models extant and future worlds

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 27

Consciousness and understanding
• Consciousness is a functional systemic state: a
state where some systemic functions are being
performed.
• A system is conscious when it is understanding
incoming signals.
• Doctors test consciousness looking at responses,
but responses are unnecessary for consciousness: it
is just an input process.
• Meanings are the model elements that are
integrated in the mental model to be exercised.
R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 28
Summary
• Consciousness escapes humanity.
• Understanding sits at the core of consciousness.
• Understanding is a process of integrating
perception into actionable models.
• These models are then used by the agent to
compute actions that make sense; i.e. that provide
value for the agent, for the mate or for the master.

• Understanding is the central topic for TOCAIS.

R.Sanz - 2019/03/26 AAAI SSS 2019 TOCAIS 29